부부간의 과거의 부양료 지급의무에 관하여

This paper primarily discusses the Supreme Court ruling in 2005 Seu 50 ( June 12, 2008) where the court dealt with the issue of whether an application for retroactive spousal maintenance (spousal support/ alimony) to the court should be allowed in general. Traditionally, the main objective of the court's award of spousal maintenance is to provide necessaries for the dependent spouse, which the supporting spouse may be compelled to contribute to the dependent spouse only for future living expenses. Following this traditional legal principles, the Supreme Court of Korea in earlier cases such as 90Meu781, 798 ( October 8, 1991), held that the retroactive spousal support should be granted only in exceptional cases where specific conditions are satisfied. Meanwhile, in the later case of 92Seu21 (May 13, 1994), the Supreme Court in a full bench decision took the position that the retroactive child support can generally be imposed. This decision caused controversies on whether the ruling could be applied to spousal support cases and conflicting views have continued until recently. In the case for review in this paper, the Supreme Court clarified its position while the trial and the appellate court took different views regarding retroactive spousal support. In particular, the Court drew a distinction between the current case and the Full Bench Decision and recognized the precedents on the retroactive spousal support as still being valid. This ruling seems to be persuasive and well-grounded as a sound principle of law compared with the views adopted by other countries.