In family law, the presumption of paternity is one of the strongest in Florida. Japan is about to change its 19th-century law about the paternity. The change in the law of paternity for children born after divorce will help Japanese children facing difficulties getting healthcare and education.

Paternity Japan

Spirited Away

Under a Japanese 1898 Civil Code that’s still in force, a child born to a woman within 300 days of divorce is considered to be that of her former husband, even if she has remarried.

Many women opt not to register their children rather than comply with the regulation, especially in cases of domestic abuse. The country’s practice of registering its citizens under household units has hampered attempts by campaigners to gain the right for married couples to retain separate names, as well as to introduce same-sex marriage.

Japan consistently lags other developed countries in terms of gender equality. It was ranked 116th out of 146 countries in the annual Global Gender Gap Report released by the World Economic Forum in July.

Japan is also one of 32 countries that maintain discriminatory restrictions on remarriage for women after divorce, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

According to a lawyer who succeeded in getting the remarriage ban for women shortened to 100 days from six months in a 2015 Supreme Court ruling, the amendment also indicates a belated shift toward prioritizing the rights of children.

Japan’s Cabinet approved draft legislation Friday to scrap a rule that has prevented the new husband of a woman who has remarried from assuming paternity over a child born within some 10 months of the woman’s divorce from her previous partner.

Florida Paternity Presumption

I have written about Florida family law matters, including paternity changes, before. In Florida, the law presumes that the husband of the biological mother of a child is the child’s legal father. This presumption is one of the strongest rebuttable presumptions known to law, and is based on the child’s interest in legitimacy and the public policy of protecting the welfare of the child.

Because of the strength of this presumption in Florida, many courts have held that a person claiming to be a “putative” father does not have the right to seek to establish paternity of a child who was born into an intact marriage if the married woman and her husband object.

In some courts, the presumption of legitimacy of a child is so strong, it may never be rebutted. The Florida Supreme Court, however, has reaffirmed that the presumption of legitimacy afforded to a child born within an intact marriage is exactly that: a presumption. And the presumption of legitimacy may be rebutted in certain, rare circumstances.

Big in Japan

The change in the law of Japan is aimed at addressing a problem in which some children of divorced women have been left off family registers to avoid former husbands being recognized as fathers. This has resulted in difficulties in children accessing health, education, and other services.

Under what would be the first change to the century-old Civil Code provisions regarding paternity and marriage, a rule banning women from remarrying within 100 days of a divorce, long considered discriminatory, is also set to be scrapped.

A Justice Ministry survey found about 70 percent of 793 individuals not included in family registers as of August this year had mothers who did not submit birth notifications because of the current legal paternity rule.

Many women, in addition to those who have fled from domestic violence, have opted not to submit notifications of the birth of their child with their current partners in order to avoid having their former husbands recognized as the legal father.

The Cabinet of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also gave the nod to giving mothers and children the right to file for court arbitration with regard to paternity disputes. At present, former husbands can deny paternity over children born within 300 days of a divorce.

The period for filing for arbitration will be set at within three years of knowledge about a birth. Under the current arbitration system, which has been limited to former husbands seeking to deny paternity, the period was set at one year.

The revisions also include deleting the parental right to punish children, while clearly stating that physical punishment and verbal and physical actions that harm a child’s healthy development are not permissible.

Registration and paternity rules are particularly important in Japan, where birth out of wedlock is rare and widely frowned-upon. About 2% of children are born to unmarried parents, while the average across OECD countries is 41%.

The Japan Times article is here.

Divorce and paternity are in the news after the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves star Malik Beasley has decided to question his son’s paternity during his divorce from his model wife, Montana Yao.

disestablishment paternity

Technical Foul

Beasley, 24, is contesting the paternity of his two year old son, Makai, who was born in March 2019, according to court documents obtained by Page Six on Wednesday.

A paternity test was conducted, but the results were unknown leading up to Beasley and Yao’s March 29 court date.

The Timberwolves player’s attorney, Steven A. Hanley, told Us Weekly that the test was “taken last week.” While the results are pending, a court granted Yao’s request for $6,500 per month in child support, but a judge denied Yao’s request for $5,300 per month in spousal maintenance and for him to pay $20,000 for her attorney’s fees.

Florida Disestablishment of Paternity

I’ve written on paternity and disestablishment of paternity before. Paternity refers to a man who has the rights and responsibilities of a parent, regardless of whether he is the biological father or not.

Through legal paternity, the father is responsible for the child’s upbringing, has a parental relationship with the child, and has an obligation to support the child.

In Florida, there are a few ways to determine paternity, including marriage (such as when the mother and father are married at the time of the birth or Court order that determines legal paternity paperwork. For example, the father voluntarily signs the child’s birth certificate or affidavit of paternity.

You can also disestablish paternity in Florida to avoid these responsibilities. A father needs to demonstrate proof that he is not the father of the child in order to disestablish paternity in Florida.

For example, an affidavit signed by the Father explaining that newly discovered evidence regarding paternity has come to his attention since the time that legal paternity was first established. The evidence must have been discovered after the finding of legal paternity. It cannot have been known prior.

Another important factor to include is the result of a DNA test showing that the legal father is probably not the biological father of the child, or an additional sworn statement stating that he was not able to obtain a DNA sample from the child. The father can also request the court to order the DNA test.

The father’s child support payments also have to be current, or at least, substantially complied with and making child support payments on time. In the event there are any past-due payments owed, the father’s affidavit has to state why the payments are past due.

Finally, a court has to determine that the legal father has not adopted the child. The child cannot have been conceived by artificial insemination while the legal father and mother were married. The legal father must not have prevented the biological father from asserting his rights. Also, the child must have been under 18 years old when the petition for disestablishment of paternity was filed.

However, even if a father properly files a petition for disestablishment and follows all the necessary steps in the statute, a judge can still deny the petition.

Double Dribble

Beasley and Yao were married on March 20, 2020 but Yao filed for divorce on Dec. 8 of the same year shortly after cuddly pics surfaced of Beasley holding hands with Larsa Pippen.

Yao, 22, claimed earlier this month that Beasley kicked her and their son out of their joint home. She alleged on social media that the duo was bouncing around “hotels and Airbnb’s even moving states” until her parents agreed to help them.

The model also denied she cheated on Beasley, who began dating Pippen while they were still married. Pippen, 46, insisted that she met Beasley after he was separated from Yao, but photos of them in Miami suggest otherwise.

“It had nothing to do with me, so I wasn’t thinking anything about it,” Pippen said in February. “If you spent a minute Googling their situation, it wasn’t the ideal situation way before me.”

The article is here.

Tag: disestablishment paternity

Presumption of Paternity is Big in Japan