Court eases foreigner registry rules
Published: 07 Oct. 2009, 08:10
The Supreme Court said yesterday it will revise regulations to allow foreigners married to Koreans here to have their nationality and foreigner registration number recorded on the family relation registry starting this month.
To date, the registry has only carried records of genders and dates of birth of spouses and children of Koreans who have yet to acquire Korean nationalities. For this reason, those Korean families have had difficulty dealing with various situations here.
“The rule change will resolve inconveniences that foreigners who have families with Koreans face. For instance, when the spouse of a Korean wants to open a bank account on behalf of his or her child, he or she must be tested by a notary public to prove his or her relationship with the kid or bring along his or her wife or husband,” said the Supreme Court in a statement.
The family relation registry has five different types of certificates, depending on their usage: default certificates, family relation certificates, marriage relation certificates and adoption certificates.
The certificates are issued either over the Internet or by local district offices. The family registry system replaced the hojuje, or a patriarchal family registry system in Korean, on the first day of 2008 following persistent claims that the long-standing system was based on a patrilineal lineage system.
According to the revised rules, those who want to have their nationalities and foreigner registration numbers recorded in the family registry can file an application with local district offices.
By Seo Ji-eun [[email protected]]
To date, the registry has only carried records of genders and dates of birth of spouses and children of Koreans who have yet to acquire Korean nationalities. For this reason, those Korean families have had difficulty dealing with various situations here.
“The rule change will resolve inconveniences that foreigners who have families with Koreans face. For instance, when the spouse of a Korean wants to open a bank account on behalf of his or her child, he or she must be tested by a notary public to prove his or her relationship with the kid or bring along his or her wife or husband,” said the Supreme Court in a statement.
The family relation registry has five different types of certificates, depending on their usage: default certificates, family relation certificates, marriage relation certificates and adoption certificates.
The certificates are issued either over the Internet or by local district offices. The family registry system replaced the hojuje, or a patriarchal family registry system in Korean, on the first day of 2008 following persistent claims that the long-standing system was based on a patrilineal lineage system.
According to the revised rules, those who want to have their nationalities and foreigner registration numbers recorded in the family registry can file an application with local district offices.
By Seo Ji-eun [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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