Ward ordered to register child of unmarried couple

The Asahi Shimbun
June 2, 2007
Source: http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200706010367.html

Bureaucrats who refused to create a resident registry for a child because her parents balked at having her listed as "illegitimate" have been ordered to do so by the Tokyo District Court.

Kazuyuki Sugawara, 42, a caregiver, his common-law wife and their daughter, now 2, took the Setagaya Ward office to court, contending it broke the law when it refused to create the registry just because the parents had left blank a section of a form entering the birth in the family register.

The section asked them to describe the girl's relationship to her parents, and because the couple's union has not been formerly registered, the child would have been entered as "not legitimate."

The ward office did not accept the parents' birth registry form and refused to compile a resident registry for the child on the basis of the former Home Affairs Ministry's rules, which state: "Entries will be made to resident registry after a birth registry is accepted in case the registry is not submitted for an illegitimate child."

The family register, which covers a married couple and their unmarried children, and records names, births, deaths, marriages and other information, is vital for all kinds of official documentation for Japanese nationals.

The resident registry is usually created based on the family register.

"Disadvantages over the years in civil life of not having a resident registry cannot be ignored," Presiding Judge Tasuku Daimon said in his ruling. "It would result in the grave problem of not being listed as a voter in the future."

The ruling also said that the ward office failed to take into consideration the fact that the family's case could be made an exception to the rules.

"The office failed to make a discretionary decision and did not create a resident register, abusing the ward authorities' discretion, and therefore, it is illegal," the ruling said.

Sugawara told reporters after the ruling, "This is a meaningful decision at a time of increasing common-law marriages and varied forms of the family."

He noted that not being registered, his daughter is not eligible for free inoculations and other benefits that come with being a resident of a ward. Paperwork in applying for administrative services is also time-consuming when the child has not been registered as a resident.

Tokyo's Mitaka in 2004 created a resident register for a child in a similar situation.

A Mitaka official said the disadvantages of not being registered as a resident were too great, and the registry was likely made as "an emergency measure."

An official with another municipality in Tokyo said local administrations increasingly make sure that unregistered children are not put at a disadvantage.(IHT/Asahi: June 2,2007)

Tokyo ward office ordered to register girl after rejecting birth certificate

Japan Today
Friday, June 1, 2007 at 07:10 EDT
Source: http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/408025

TOKYO — The Tokyo District Court ordered a Tokyo ward office on Thursday to register as a resident a girl born to a common-law couple even though the office rejected her birth registration by her parents on the grounds that the parents refused to classify her as "an illegitimate child." The suit was the first case where the court was asked to decide whether a municipality should add a child to his or her family's residency registry even if it has not accepted a birth registration.

The case concerned the 2-year-old daughter of Kazuyuki Sugawara, a 42-year-old nursing caregiver, and his wife in Setagaya Ward. They have not registered their marriage. In April 2005, the couple refused to make an entry in a column of the birth registration to indicate a family relation of the child as either "legitimate" or "illegitimate," resulting in the ward office not accepting it.

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