The topic of joint custody has been a ball kicked around multiples times throughout the last 4 or 5 years, though in recent times it seems that the ball is at least moving in a consistent direction (or so I’d like to think).
[https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/264807](https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/264807)
The gist is that the Ministry of Justice will present a draft outline of the amendment to the civil code to a legislation special committee in August.
In the news article, there is a picture showing the projected timeline of the process.
August:
\-Ministry of justice will submit a draft outline to the legislative committee. They will hold some discussions.
Autumn and later:
\-Ministry of Justice will submit an outline to the legislative committee. (More discussion)
\-Legislative committee acknowledges the outline and provides an answer to the minister of justice.
\-Ministry of justice will create an amendment to the civil code based on the outline.
Next year:
\-Ruling party examines the amendment to the civil code and acknowledges it.
\-The government submits the amendment to the civil code to the Diet.
Presumably, after that, if the lower and upper house can both agree on the amendment to the civil code, then it will pass into law.
The ELI5 to the best of my knowledge:
\-Japan functionally has 3 branches of the government similar to USA, (executive, legislative, judicial) etc. The executive branch is the prime minister and his cabinet, legislative is the Diet, judicial is the courts.
\-The ministry of justice (under the cabinet and prime minister) wants to introduce joint custody.
\-The Diet will first assign a special committee to examine the joint custody plan and outline that was submitted by the MOJ. This is where we are at now.
\-If the special committee approves the contents of the outline, then the MOJ will draft a formal amendment to the civil code.
\-The amendment will then go to the lower and upper house of the Diet where they will discuss and vote on its implementation.
Possible changes:
The topic of joint custody is still civil unfortunately, meaning that if the custodial parent the child mainly stays with refuses visitation to the other separated custodial parent, the punishment is still just a fine. However some additional changes could be:
\-Moving away with the child without telling the other custodial parent could be considered kidnapping which is a criminal offense. In the current single parent custody cases, such action would only be considered a denial of visitation which is a civil offense.
\-The separated custodial parent could freely contact the child by email or phone. Currently, the custodial parent can refuse or at least limit the contact between the child and non custodial parent.
\-The separated custodial parent would not be able to refuse child support payments as easily. A custodial parent maliciously withholding support money could become a criminal offense, unlike the current system where the custodial parent would have to go through a lengthy lawsuit process to get any money out of the non custodial parent.
​