Legal Status of the Child in Japan, Especially in Family Law Matters

Abstract

Concerning the rights of the child, there was no comprehensive legal framework in Japan until the National Diet ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Within our domestic legal system, there is an obligation for adults to protect the child. However, in the field of family law, children of 15 years or older are treated like an adult in certain cases. As for fertility assistance, there is not yet sufficient legal basis to manage the parent-child relationships. Concerning the parent-child relationship, we have been using the concept “parental authority” in the Civil Code, but recently the idea of “parental responsibility” is being accepted and the interest of the child is deemed most important. The child born out of wedlock has been discriminated against in the matter of succession, but in September 2013, the Supreme Court made a decision that such discrimination violates the Constitution (equality under the law). The Japanese Government is preparing for amendment of the Civil Code to abolish such discrimination.

This report, which has been finalized in October 2013, has first been published in the International Center for Comparative Law and Politics (ICCLP), Graduate School of Law and Politics, the University of Tokyo (ed.), Japanese Reports for the XIXth International Congress of Comparative Law, Vienna 2014, pp. 222–228, © ICCLP Tokyo 2015.