Legal Opinion | Ministry of Justice's Advance Notice on the Draft Amendments to Certain Provisions of Part IV (Relatives) of the Civil Code

Last edited: February 20, 2025

In response to Constitutional Court Judgment No. 4 of 2023, the regulations concerning grounds for judicial divorce and property effects after divorce (including distribution of surplus marital property, alimony, and child support) are reviewed, and the draft amendments to certain provisions of Part IV (Relatives) of the Civil Code have been formulated as follows:

1. To strengthen the obligation of spouses to disclose property in order to implement the right to claim the distribution of surplus marital property, it is explicitly stipulated that when one spouse claims the distribution of surplus property from the other, they may request the other party to provide a property inventory and related documents.
2. Drawing upon the spirit of the breakdown theory in foreign legislative precedents, the current requirements for judicial divorce are moderately relaxed.
3. Regarding the amendments to the right to claim alimony, matters include the requirements for establishment, the addition of the alimony obligor's maintenance capacity as a ground for mitigating or exempting the obligation of payment, the method of exercising the right to claim alimony, the balancing basis and factors to be considered for the degree of alimony payment, and the explicit stipulation that payment of alimony would be manifestly unfair to the obligor as a ground for mitigating or exempting the obligation of payment.