A recent ruling by the Supreme Court that the paternity of a child cannot be revoked even when DNA tests disprove any biological relationship points to the need — as the top court justices themselves suggest — for reviewing the Civil Code in ways that clear up the legal confusion and protect the interests of children.

In a 3-2 decision by the five justices on its First Petty Bench, the top court on July 17 reversed lower court rulings in two of the three cases in which the legal paternity of children has been challenged by DNA test results that suggest they are not biologically related to their presumed fathers. The Supreme Court ruled that DNA test results alone do not override the Civil Code provision that a child conceived by the wife during marriage shall be presumed to be the child of her husband, saying that there is a need to maintain stability of the child's legal status despite the proven lack of blood ties to his or her presumed father.

In both of the two cases, the wife gave birth to a child with a man other than her husband during their marriage, and after leaving the husband — through formal divorce in one case — and living with the other man and the child, sought to have the former partner's paternal relationship with the child revoked on the basis of a DNA test that "99.99 percent" disproved their blood ties. The district court and the high court had ruled in favor of the wife, saying that DNA test results are the "ultimate truth" that overrides the Civil Code provision.