Courts divided over recognition of unregistered child's paternity.

TOKYO, Feb. 1 Kyodo

Two Japanese family courts were divided in their responses last year to a request for arbitration in determining the paternity of a child whose registration with the local government has been rejected due to a controversial provision in the Civil Code, sources close to the matter said Sunday.

The Tokyo Family Court had pressed a 32-year-old woman and her baby boy to withdraw their arbitration request to have the woman's current husband recognized as the infant's father, while the Yokohama Family Court did recognize the man as the father, the sources said.

The differing outcomes show the lack of consistency in the family courts' handling of cases involving the provision, which says a child born within 300 days from the date of dissolution or cancellation of a marriage is deemed to have been conceived during the time the couple were married.

The woman had filed the arbitration requests with the two courts, seeking recognition that her current husband is the child's father, without involving her former spouse in the court proceedings.

According to Masae Ido, a member of a group which supports families with unregistered children where the woman sought advice, the woman separated from her then husband in March 2007 and started dating the man who is her current husband.

She found herself pregnant in October that year, two months before the divorce from her former husband was granted, and remarried in June 2008, Ido said. The woman gave birth to her son in July last year, 212 days after her divorce.

In August, she filed an arbitration request with the Tokyo Family Court's Hachioji branch, but a judge suddenly told her to withdraw it, the sources said.

Then, after moving, she filed a similar request with the nearby Yokohama Family Court's Sagamihara branch. The court recognized the boy as the current husband's child without involving the former husband in the case or requiring DNA tests, they said.

The woman and her current husband have expressed relief that the Yokohama court recognized their child's paternity, but said they cannot understand why the two courts handled their case in a different manner, the sources said.