Japan to beef up law to enable handover of children to parents with custody when the other resists

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/02/19/national/japan-beef-law-enable-handover-children-parents-custody-resists/#.XHA3-i2ZPVo

Japan to beef up law to enable handover of children to parents with custody when the other resists

KYODO

The Cabinet on Tuesday approved a bill revising the enforcement of civil law to enable the handover of a child to a parent who is awarded custody, even if the other parent refuses to abide by a court order to transfer guardianship.

Currently, the law has no clear stipulation on such handovers, leaving court officials to rely on a clause related to asset seizure to enforce child custody orders. The current system has drawn criticism due to the fact it treats children as property.

Legislation implementing the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, an international treaty providing a framework allowing the return of a child internationally abducted by a parent, will similarly be revised.

At present, legislation requires a parent living with a child to be present when the child is handed over to the other parent, but the proposed revision will allow a transfer without both parents being there.

The convention, to which Japan acceded in 2014, sets out rules and procedures for the prompt return of children under 16 to their country of habitual residence when they are taken or retained by one parent, if requested by the other parent.

The bill to modify the Civil Execution Law also includes revisions to allow courts to obtain debtors’ financial information and bar registered crime syndicate members from acquiring foreclosed real estate properties in public auctions.

The amendments are aimed at helping authorities seize money and properties from parents who fail to meet their court-ordered child support obligations and from people who do not pay compensation to crime victims.

The revised execution law will make it easier for courts to require financial and public institutions to provide information on debtors, including data related to their savings and places of employment.

Japan maintains a system of sole custody and, in a large majority of cases, when a dispute reaches court mothers are awarded custody after divorce. It is not unusual for children in Japan to stop seeing their fathers after their parents break up.

Justice panel drafts rules to facilitate child custody exchanges

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/09/01/national/justice-panel-drafts-rules-facilitate-child-custody-exchanges/#.W4ypAi2ZNsM

A legislative panel under the Justice Ministry has outlined rules to make the process of child custody handovers easier. | GETTY IMAGES

Justice panel drafts rules to facilitate child custody exchanges

JIJI

SEP 1, 2018

The Justice Ministry’s legislative council subcommittee on Friday drafted rules to facilitate child custody exchanges between divorced parents, including greater power for enforcement officers.

The panel compiled the draft in response to several cases in which custody exchanges did not succeed due to uncooperative parents who lost guardianship rights.

In 2017, handovers took place in only 35 of the 106 cases where such requests were filed, according to the Supreme Court.

Enforcement officers acting on court orders have little recourse when parents stripped of custody rights refuse to cooperate, sources familiar with the matter said.

After the panel’s rules are submitted to the justice minister, the government plans to present a bill to revise the law to the extraordinary Diet session expected to be convened in the fall.

There is no legal provision to force parents who are divorced or separated to handover children. Children are handed back to enforcement officers in the presence of the parent who lost custody but is living with them.

The rules call for giving more power to enforcement officers and allowing handovers to take place only in the presence of parents with custody rights, on condition sufficient consideration is paid to the sentiment of the children.

To help, the panel also called a legal revision to implement the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which is used to settle cross-border custody disputes arising from breakups of international marriages.

Parental child abduction places Japan on blacklist

 

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Parental-child-abduction-places-Japan-on-blacklist

Parental child abduction places Japan on blacklist

Different views on family hamper compliance with Hague convention

KOYA JIBIKI and HIONA SHIRAIWA, Nikkei staff writersSeptember 01, 2018 19:31 JST

The U.S. State department noted in a May report that Japan has no effective means of enforcing the Hague Abduction Convention, which leads to a pattern of noncompliance. (Photo by Wataru Ito) 

TOKYO — Japan is facing criticism over noncompliance with an international treaty that sets rules for cross-border parental child abductions as the government is slow to enforce court orders on its own citizens who have taken their children to escape overseas custody battles.

Japan was among the 12 nations singled out in a U.S. report in May for “demonstrating a pattern of noncompliance” with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

As criticism grows amid the rise in international marriages, the country is being forced to rethink its traditional family views that assume that children should stay with their mothers.

Japan, which appeared on the list for the first time, is accused of not having effective measures to enforce court orders demanding that abducting parents return children to the countries where they previously resided.

Despite the “measurable progress” Japan has made on international parental child abduction, “in cases where taking parents refused to comply with court return orders, there were no effective means to enforce the order, resulting in a pattern of noncompliance,” the U.S. State Department report says.

Japan is the only Group of Seven country among the 12, which also includes China, India, Brazil and Argentina.

Since the Hague Abduction Convention came into force in 1983, a total of 98 countries have joined the treaty. It is aimed at facilitating the return of children removed from their “habitual residence” in violation of custody agreements.

 

Japanese high court orders mother to return son to father in US

 

 

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180718/p2g/00m/0fp/001000c

Japanese high court orders mother to return son to father in US

July 18, 2018 (Mainichi Japan)

NAGOYA (Kyodo) — A high court in central Japan ordered a woman on Tuesday to return her son to his father in the United States, saying her failure to comply with an international convention on child abduction is illegal.

The Nagoya High Court ruled in favor of the father in a dispute between parents, who are both Japanese, over the custody of their American-born son who was brought to Japan by his mother without the father’s consent in 2016.

Presiding Judge Hisashi Toda of the high court said although the son “claims he wants to stay in Japan, he has been living in the country being largely dependent on his mother, who wields illegal psychological influence on him.”

The mother had been ordered by the Tokyo Family Court to return the son to the United States based on the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

But she ignored the order, prompting the father to file a habeas corpus appeal with the high court’s Kanazawa branch.

The high court branch rejected his claim last November, saying, “Custody transfer would go against the son’s will.”

However, the Supreme Court in March overturned the ruling, saying it sees “clear illegality” in the mother’s failure to comply with the order, and sent the case back to the high court.

The Hague treaty sets out rules and procedures for the prompt return to the country of habitual residence of children under 16 taken or retained by one parent as a result of failed marriages, if requested by the other parent. Japan joined the convention in 2014.