Forged Signatures on Faked Divorce and Child Custody Agreements

Q: There are documented cases of a Japanese spouse forging signatures of a non-Japanese, such as a divorce agreement or child custody agreement.  How is this possible?  It's illegal to forge a signature to any document. How can a spouse do that with divorce papers?

A: First of all, a divorce by mutual consent in Japan does not require both spouses to be present for a Divorce By Mutual Consent (kyogi rikon). This makes it relatively easy as the only thing left to verify the authenticity is your signature.  (A copy of your passport may also be required, but I'm not sure about this.)

Forgery of foreign "signatures" is quite easy in Japan. The ward office has no method of verifying a signature, no requirement for a notarization of a signature, and the papers do not have to be filed jointly. In the case of a registered "hanko" which is the traditional method of signing an official document in Japan, the ward office can match the "hanko" (a carved signature stamp always using red ink) to the one on file. However, hankos are also forged in the sense that family members, and often company employees as well, may have access to each others hankos. There are many situations documented where hankos have been "borrowed" for the purpose of "signing" a document, without the permission of the signee.

Why Would Someone Take This Chance?

While married, both spouses have equal custody under Japanese law.  You could legally just grab your child at school and leave the country if you were still married.  Japanese spouses do this to each other also for the same reason.  The police seem unlikely to intervene in these cases unless things get violent.

How Can I prevent This?

If you want to prevent a spouse from divorcing you fraudulently, there is some paperwork that you can file at a government office that will prevent a mutual consent divorce from being filed.

There is more information about it on our Common Japanese Legal Forms page and in the article: You Are Afraid Your Japanese Spouse Is About to Divorce You.

What To Do If Your Spouse Has Submitted Forged Divorce or Child Custody Certificate.

You need to get a lawyer and go to court.  You can get a copy of the divorce form from the local government office where it was submitted.  You will then probably have to get a handwriting expert to examine it and give evidence to the court.  We know of one foreign mother who has done this, and lost in court.  (Unfortunately details are not available at this time.  We will try to get them and post them in the future.)  Another left-behind parent, David Brian Thomas, was reportedly able to contest a forged signature on a form giving custody of his child to his wife's family. (The only details available are from newspaper reports you can see by following the link on his name.)

One thing to be aware of is that a Japanese judge will sometimes ignore the main issue in a trial and rule based on whether or not you really intended to be married or not.  So it is important to make a good case that you really want to try to resume the marriage and make it work.  Be sure to support this with believable reasons.

Another option might be claim that a divorce by mutual consent is not valid in your country at all.  It helps if you were not resident in Japan at the time.  Then you may be able to get the divorce thrown out on alternate grounds which may be more "acceptable" to a Japanese judge than calling the Japanese parent a forger, which may have criminal penalties. 

You may also be able to go back to your own country and press civil charges based on forgery or the Divorce By Mutual Consent not being valid there.  Its unlikely you would get remedies inside Japan, but if the parent is required to travel to your country for business, you may be able to exert some pressure that way. This excellent article gives some reasons and applies them to the UK: Non-Recognition of Japanese Consent Divorces in the U.K. (cached copy)