There was an incident where a couple, who had been living a peaceful life, was forced to leave their familiar home due to a court order related to a dispute over their grandchildren’s custody. How could such a situation be made possible by the application of the law?
We spoke with the individuals involved, who reside in Saitama Prefecture.
The reason we rented an apartment in Kawagoe City after my husband’s retirement was that we wanted to spend our second life as a couple in the land of our ancestors, reconnecting with relatives and visiting our family graves. The apartment was just a 10-minute walk from a relative’s house. Whenever we visited Kawagoe, we would stop by to see my elderly aunt. She still calls us, saying, “I’m lonely, please come visit.” Although we were unable to accompany our eldest son during his visitation, I won’t deny that part of us hoped we might bump into our grandchildren somewhere in Kawagoe.
The anxiety and fear from the police calls and the provisional injunction still flash back to us even now. We learned through the police that my son’s ex-wife had issues with us. It seems she had spotted us walking or shopping, and there were dozens of reports made to the police, saying they had received a sighting of us. Since she filed for a provisional injunction in 2021 to prohibit stalking or ambushing, we began to visit Kawagoe less frequently. Since the court issued the order in May of the same year, we have not returned to Kawagoe, except for court appearances. We haven’t been able to visit our family graves during the Obon or Higan periods.
The basis of the injunction was that we allegedly violated my son’s ex-wife’s right to a peaceful life. An Australian newspaper also reported that a court ordered that we had infringed the “moral rights” of the mother who abducted the children by living in the same town. Parents who do not have custodial rights have no human rights, and even more so, the grandparents (our grandchildren’s grandparents) are treated like animals, being forced out of where they live. The Australian newspaper also stated that the sole custody system is treating them like criminals.
The court’s decision was based on the Civil Code regarding “parental authority.” The judge stated that an injunction based on the claim of personality rights infringement is related to property and therefore can be represented by a legal guardian. In other words, whether or not a parent can see their child is based on the “property management rights” that the parent holds over the child’s finances. The court ruled that a custodial parent, as the legal guardian with parental authority, seeking an injunction against the debtor based on personality rights, does not constitute a conflict of interest (Article 826, Paragraph 1 of the Civil Code). Therefore, issuing a court order to distance grandparents is deemed to be in the best interests of both the parent and the child.
This provisional injunction was left pending for about four and a half months in the District Court and about one and a half months in the High Court, until the day before the six-month deadline expired, when my son’s ex-wife withdrew the request. After being forced to wait for so long, we were suddenly deprived of the opportunity to contest the District Court’s decision in the High Court.
Japan’s sole custody system provides a powerful right that allows someone to use the court’s power to evict an unwelcome person from their neighborhood.
