Legal Revised law on tackling paternity after divorce taking effect

The revised Japanese law, which takes effect today, 1 April, addresses outdated rules related to paternity, introducing a more flexible approach to designating the legal father of a child born after a divorce and removing the 100-day remarriage ban for women. Under the revamped Civil Code regulation, if a child is born within 300 days of their mother's divorce, the previous husband is still presumed to be the child's father. However, if a child is born when the mother is remarried, the new husband assumes legal paternity, bypassing the 300-day rule. This change is significant as many women have refrained from notifying the birth of a child with a new partner to avoid having their former husband recognized as the legal father of the child.

Some of them have fled domestic violence from their former spouses or were still undergoing divorce proceedings when they conceived a child with their current partner. But leaving children off their family registry by failing to report their births to local governments puts them at a disadvantage in receiving a wide range of public and private services in Japan, including matters related to marriage, education and employment. The original Civil Code stated that a child born 200 or more days after a marriage or within 300 days of the date of divorce are presumed to have been conceived within the marriage. The rule was intended to protect the child's welfare by swiftly determining the child's legal father. The provision on the 100-day waiting time for women to remarry, meanwhile, had been in place to avoid the overlapping of claims for legal paternity by the former and current husband in the event a woman remarries shortly after divorce and gives birth between 201 and 300 days later. But the ban has been criticized as discriminatory for only applying to women and has become unnecessary with the latest change.

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The revised law expands the right to file for rejecting paternity for children born within 300 days of a divorce to both mothers and children, whereas previously, this right was limited to fathers. Additionally, the filing period has been extended to three years from the previous limit of one year. This allows more time for individuals to challenge paternity. Furthermore, the changes apply retroactively, covering children born before the revised Civil Code was enacted during the first year of its implementation. However, critics argue that these legal modifications may not fully address the issue of children without a family registry, particularly for mothers who cannot obtain a divorce or choose common-law marriage over legal marriage with new partners.