The Current Changes in Judicial Proceedings for Family Disputes in Japan and UK-Socio-legal Perspective

(1)日本与英格兰和威尔士在处理家庭纠纷，特别是离婚事宜的管理原则和做法上既有相同之处，也有不同之处。(2)根据2003年新颁布的《个人事务诉讼法》，指出家庭纠纷的诉讼程序中存在不相容的原则，以妥善解决纠纷。一方面，强调程序应以保护家庭脆弱成员的家长式做法为基础，这似乎是Choutei程序所熟悉的，但另一方面，它声称，它还应包括对抗性因素，以确保当事人的权利，这被视为有序诉讼的一个主要要素。不仅在离婚案件中，而且在未成年人父母离婚后的监护问题上，学术界和实务界对这一问题的看法仍然存在分歧。例如，一种主张，当S卷入父母纠纷时，应根据家庭法院和其他相关机构的家长式做法保护子女；另一种主张，即使是儿童，也应被视为案件的标的和离婚的一方。(3)在英格兰和威尔士，离婚程序主要基于对抗性原则，并对程序进行了一些修改，如庭外调解。据指出，保障和保护离婚中易受伤害的一方的权利的规则是通过一系列涉及双方公平和正义的先例制定的，而这些先例可以通过组织良好的律师机构来实现。

(1) There are similarities and differences of principles and practices between Japan and England and Wales as for managements for dealing with family disputes, in particular divorce matters.(2) Under the Personal Affairs litigation Act newly enacted in 2003, it is pointed out that there are incompatible principles in the proceedings for family disputes in order to resolve disputes properly. On one hand, it is emphasized that the procedure should be based on the paternalistic approach for protection of vulnerable members of a family, which seems to be familiar to Choutei procedure, but it is, on the other hand, claimed that it should also include the adversarial factors in order to secure the rights of the parties, which is regarded as a major element of ordinal litigation. Not only in the cases of divorce but also in the custody issues over minors after divorce of their parents, discrepancies in views of academics and practitioners over this issue still remain. For instance, one asserts that a child should be protected under the paternalistic approach of family courts and other relevant institutions when s/he is involved in parents' disputes while the other emphasizes that even a child should be regarded as a subject of the case and treated as one of the parties to divorce.(3) In England and Wales, the divorce procedure is mainly based on the adversarial principle with some modified procedure, such as out of court mediation. It is observed that the rule of securing and protecting the rights of the vulnerable parties involved in divorce was made by a series of precedents referring to fairness and justice for the parties which might be achieved by well organized institution of solicitor.