「連れ去り」容認する司法に現役副市長が実名で告発〈ＡＥＲＡ〉

On October 23, a Diet Study Session called by Diet member Mr. Yokokume on the problems of parental abduction and custody determination in Japan’s family law and family courts was held.  The session ran a bit like a symposium combined with a press conference.  For the first time, Mr. Yasuyuki Watanabe spoke publicly about his case ,  naming the judge whose conduct, decisions and failure to follow the latest, best practices of the law as set out in revisions of the civil code exemplifies the problems of child abduction and elimination of parental rights for which Japan’s family courts have been bitterly criticized both within Japan and internationally. Mr. Watanabe and numerous other parents seek relief in the form of new law to guarantee the security of the parent-child relationship.

Law Professor Colin Jones also spoke, as well as several others.

Prior to this event, Mr. Watanabe had taken a case to the Supreme Court where he asked for custody of his daughter. The significance of the Diet Study Session is that a member of a government bureaucracy was making a very trenchant declaration; he is an official in the Ministry of Internal Affairs condemning the family law system and by extension the Ministry of Justice, and  is naming the judge in his case [Wakabayashi] publicly,  bringing  forward  that the actions of this judge as well as others are grounded in past practices which are no longer legally justifiable, and should not continue as they have been. The continuation of the practice of nearly automatic termination of parental rights by Japan’s family court judges is defiantly misguided. The judge in this case made disdainful comments in the course of the custody hearings which implied that by virtue of his position as a sovereign family court judge, he could and would ignore with impunity the statements of former Justice Minister Eda in Diet testimony in which he urged that an agreed revision of the family law be implemented and adopted immediately. Essentially a statement of the institutional and personal autonomy of his court room, the judge sidestepped agreed upon change in civil code article 766, which now requires a divorcing couple with a child to specify visitation arrangements between the child and the father and mother, in addition to custody. These are guidelines that the family court was and is supposed by the Diet and Supreme Court to have followed. But the judge in this case, as have judges throughout the system, simply resisted the guidelines. This reveals a disconnect between the Minister of Justice and the bureaucratic family law judges within the Ministry of Justice, and implies a certain willful disobedience of the intention of the law on their part. Even actions of the Supreme court and the admonishments of the Minister of Justice are ignored by family court judges who have self-interest and a “tradition” of their own making on which to rely.

Resistance to change in family law becomes complex very quickly. The State, seeking legitimacy through its public pronouncements, wants to be able to say it is protecting its families and its citizens;  yet it alternately collaborates with, seeks support from, or steps aside for practices in civil society which  undermine  family stability and seek to impose private interests over those of citizens, thus turning working life and the evolving material of citizenship  against family, community and neighborhood well-being. As a consequence of the State’s obsequy before interests which seek to see civil matters in maximally private terms (forcing the withdrawal from citizens of state protection against the power of those interests, such as those which may be financial and geo-political in origin ), it is then politically doubly-difficult for these  State institutions  to reform  so-called “private” matters of family law. In the end there is antagonism and conflict of loyalties within the direction pursued by the State.

There is a small but growing number of citzens such as Mr. Watanabe who are working to compel the Diet to create a real family law code, to pressure the Ministry of Justice to enforce the kinds of procedures needed to eliminate the abuse to which parents and children are subject under the current regime. This is occurring in the context of a small rebound of activism amidst an increasingly polarized Japanese public for the first time since the 1970’s as a consequence of the triple disaster and nuclear accident of 2011, the corruption evident in Japan’s energy politics, and popular outrage over U.S. military bases in Okinawa. Noisy nationalists are also very much on the rise, much to the detriment of Japanese political affairs. In an era in which institutions of the nation-state whose real sovereignty over matters of economy and society are rapidly waning, and whose accountability to the public has precipitously declined, this brings along with it very serious problems of legitimacy for the State. Japan’s is not an exceptional case in this regard. But the abuse and misuse of judicial practices in Japan’s family courts is more than noteworthy. It is endemic.

Press coverage of this controversy, particularly as regards abductions and the abuse of family court, is increasing, in Asahi, Yomiuri, and AERA news magazine.

The following appeared in AERA. An English translation appears below the article:

dot. 10月25日(木)7時9分配信