By 
01-06-2026 | Roberta Moisuc | Asia Team Researcher, Global Human Rights Defence.
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has recently reviewed a discrimination petition filed in October 2025 by an individual in a same-sex relationship who was denied marriage leave by his employer.
The case concerns one partner of a same-sex relationship who applied for marriage leave ahead of his wedding ceremony with his partner, with whom he had been living for two years. Alongside his leave request, the individual even attached a wedding invitation as proof of the wedding. The institution of his employment has “marriage” as one of the conditions allowing people to receive special leave, but does not specify what “type” of marriage is included under the condition, or what documents you need to submit as proof. The employer institution had rejected the individual’s request and had even marked his absence as unauthorised leave and deducted from his salary and performance bonus. In an interview with The Korea Herald, the petitioner stated:
I thought my request would be approved with just the wedding invitation, because other employees who got married were able to take special leave by submitting only their invitations […] As a public institution, my workplace should have made its decision based on its employment rules, but the rules on marriage leave contain no provisions on gender or documents proving the legal validity of a marriage
The petition was received by the Commission on October 30th, 2025, and the investigation was completed as of May 2026. The case is currently under deliberation proceedings, and no formal decision has been made yet. Although South Korean law does not allow for same-sex couples to be married legally, the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that offering certain benefits such as health insurance to heterosexual couples but not to same-sex partners was discriminatory. South Korean law needs timely amendments to recognise same-sex marriages and partnerships as cases such as this continue to demonstrate discrimination patterns.
