Calls for changes to law on children born after divorces

The Mainichi Shimbun
March 20, 2007
Source: http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070320p2a00m0na020000c.html

The Democratic Party of Japan on Tuesday launched a team to investigate revisions to an article in Japan's Civil Code which states that children born within 300 days of a divorce are presumed to be the offspring of the mother's former husband.

The party's move follows an agreement by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito to form a special new law to revise operation of the Civil Code article. On March 8 the Chiba Municipal Assembly submitted a request to the government seeking changes to the article. The Yamagata Municipal Assembly submitted a similar request on March 15.

Action by the political parties and the municipal assemblies suggests that momentum is gathering for changes to the law, even though the Justice Ministry, which has decided to change the regulations, has not introduced any concrete measures to improve the current situation.

Article 772 of Japan's Civil Code states that a child born within 300 days of a divorce is presumed to be the offspring of the mother's ex-husband. This regulation has made it impossible to register some children as the offspring of their real fathers, which, in turn, has left the children without family register records.

Speaking in a news conference on the Civil Code article on Tuesday, Justice Minister Jinen Nagase explained its significance by saying, "The idea of quickly confirming the relationship between the father and the child and stabilizing family relations is rational." Commenting on change to the operation of the law, he said, "We want to do that quickly, but it wouldn't be any good if we did it quickly and there were problems such as confusion at (municipal government) counters."

The Chiba Municipal Assembly's request, which was sent to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Nagase and the heads of the Upper and Lower houses of the Diet, states, "We strongly request that operation of the regulations be inspected quickly and that immediate revisions be made so that statements in family register records do not differ from the facts."

Assembly member Hiromi Hasegawa said that members who participated in a committee meeting on the issue called for the government to quickly respond and said that changes to the regulation were unavoidable under current social trends.

Chiba officials said there had been eight cases so far in which the mother of children born within 300 days of their divorces claimed that their current husbands had fathered the children.

"Children who don't have family register records are unable to receive administrative services, which puts their livelihoods at risk," Hasegawa said.

In Yamagata a municipal government worker accidentally listed a boy who was born within 300 days of his mother's divorce under his mother's family register, when he was supposed to have been registered in the family register of the woman's former husband. This was reportedly one of the reasons that the municipal assembly sent its statement to the government seeking changes to the Civil Code article. (Mainichi)

March 20, 2007