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[Sankei Shimbun, June 15th, 2012]
International divorce
In relation to the case of a Nicaraguan man (40) who lives in the US and requested his former Japanese wife (44) to hand over his elder daughter (9), it was revealed on June 14th that the Osaka High Court, chief justice Mitsuru Sakai, dismissed a plea of the wife for custody of the daughter. It means that the man's custody of the child is more or less recognized. The judgment was made on April 27th.
The man and his former wife married in the US in 2002, but the wife returned home to Japan with their daughter in 2008. Their divorce was finalized in the US the next year, and the man had sole custody of the child.
Upon this determination, the former wife appealed for custody of the child at the Kobe family court Itami District and the court decided that the former wife had a right to custody in March last year. However, both sides appealed the decision. Later, the former wife who was charged for the crime of infringing the husband's right to custody accepted a judicial deal and handed over the daughter to the man in December of the same year.
According to the judgment reason of chief justice of Sakai District, he respected the judgment of the US court which recognized the right of sole custody of the man because the former wife had not directly taken care of the daughter after last April when she was taken into custody on charges of infringing the man's sole custody. And he judged that there was no reason to transfer custody of the child to the former wife. The former wife does not accept the decision, and she is appealing it in the Supreme Court.
Under the Hague Convention which Japan is moving towards joining, the parent must as a rule, first return the child to the original country of residence in order for custody to be determined. The man commented, "My former wife could not have been restrained if Japan had joined the Hague Convention."
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