The court has ruled that individuals are not eligible to receive a split pension if they entered separation before their official divorce, resulting in an actual marital period of less than five years.
The Seoul Administrative Court's Administrative Division 3 (Presiding Judge Ho Sung-ho) ruled in favor of the plaintiff, identified as A, in a lawsuit filed against the National Pension Service seeking to cancel the refusal to modify the pension amount.
A married B in 1992 and they got a divorce by agreement in 2000.
A subscribed to the National Pension from 1989 to 2015 and has been receiving an old-age pension since 2018.
In 2024, B filed a claim with the National Pension Service for the payment of a split pension regarding A's old-age pension.
The pension service determined their marital period to be 83 months and the pension splitting ratio to be 50 percent, ordering A to pay the split pension.
Dissatisfied, A filed a review request with the National Pension Review Committee. The committee determined that approximately three months of the previously recognized marital period was a period without an actual marital relationship, and excluded it from the split pension calculation criteria.
This effectively recognized the marital period as approximately 80 months, but A filed an administrative lawsuit, arguing that this was also inconsistent with the facts.
According to the National Pension Act, if a person divorces after being married for five years or more and their former spouse is a beneficiary of the old-age pension, they can receive a split pension of the former spouse's retirement pension starting at age 60.
At this time, the regulations specify that periods during which there was no actual marital relationship due to separation or running away from home must be excluded from the marital period.
A's argument was that because they married in 1992 and lived together until B left home and started living separately in 1995, the marital period did not reach five years.
The court sided with A, ruling that B does not qualify as a split pension beneficiary because the marital period between A and B was less than five years.
The court pointed out, "Combining the resident registration records and the arguments of both sides, they began living separately around 1995, and there has been no fact of living together since at least March 1996, nor any interaction that could be regarded as maintaining a marital relationship." It added, "No actual marital relationship existed from March 1996 until February 2000, when they divorced by agreement."
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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