International Law

Korea Gets Serious About Child Support Order Enforcement

It’s not business law, but I think this is an interesting tidbit. Today’s Law Times, Korea’s legal-industry newspaper, carries an article headlined “Child Support Orders Ineffective”—over a story telling us, well, how ineffective are the child-support orders issued by the Korean court in divorce cases. But there is good news: Legal reforms being proposed by the government will strengthen (commence) enforcement of these orders, which previously were widely disregarded. According to the Law Times, almost 2/3 of spouses weren’t paying properly:

?? ?????? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???? ??? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ?? ??? ???? ??? ?? ??????? ?? ? ??? ?? ??. ? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ?? ???? ?? ???? 100?? ??? ???? ????, 3? ?? ??? ???? ?? ???? 30?? ?? ??? ??? ???? ?? ??.

Now where a party subject to a child-support obligation pursuant to a divorce decree or agreement does not pay support as required, the other party may request the court to issue an “enforcement order”. If a party fails to respond to a court enforcement order without justifiable reasons, and persistently does not pay support, an administrative penalty of up to W1 million (about US$1025) may by imposed. In the case of three or more failures, detention of up to 30 days may be imposed.

??? ??? ?? ???? ? ?????? ?????? ??? ?? ??? ?? ??? ????. ?? 2001? ???????? ??? ?????? ???? ??? ?? ???? ?? ?? 91?? 41.9%? ???? ???? ???? ???? ??? ???, 19.4%? ????? ???? ??? ????. ???? 61.3%? ???? ??? ???? ??? ?? ???.

It’s emerging that divorced women don’t receive proper child-support payments from their former husbands. According to a 2001 survey by the Family Law Counseling Center of 91 divorced women raising children along, 41.9% weren’t receiving the child support payments according to their divorce decree or support agreement; 19.4% responded that they received payments irregularly. This means that 61.3% of respondents reported not receiving proper support payments.

The 30 days’ detention looks interesting, as ordinarily the court hasn’t had a contempt power. Now it appears some form of contempt power is being implemented.

This is a proposal currently being raised to solicit public comment. The statute would be passed in the autumn for effectiveness probably in the new year, if not killed during the comment period.

Full post as published by Korea Law Blog on May 08, 2008 (boomark / email).