The court ruled that it is fair to judge whether a foreigner who wants to naturalize in Korea can call the national anthem based on permission.

According to the legal community on the 29th, the 13th Administrative Division of Seoul Administrative Court (Deputy Judge Jang Nak-won) ruled that the foreigner A had filed a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Ministry of Justice, saying, “Please revoke the disallowed application for nationality”.

Mr. A, from a South Asian country, applied for naturalization in 2017, but the following year, the Ministry of Justice was disallowed for 'failure to interview'.

At the time of the first naturalization interview, Mr. A was judged to be unsuitable for items such as 'the attitude of the Korean people', 'the belief in the basic order of liberal democracy', 'the basic literacy as a citizen', and 'the national anthem song'.

In the second interview, interviewers also evaluated non-conformity with items such as the attitude of the Korean people, basic literacy as a citizen, and singing an anthem.

The judiciary said that it was an appropriate criterion, saying, "When looking at the contents of individual judging items, it has objective and rationality as a criterion for judging the basic requirements to be met as a Korean citizen, such as Korean language ability, attitude as a Korean citizen, and belief in a free democratic basic order." .

He also added that the interviewer's suitability and non-conformity determination coincided with each other, and the general opinion of the narrative was similar.

(Photo = Yonhap News)