Every Child
Has Two Parents
Court: Japan has jurisdiction in custody case
December 5, 2008
![http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/12/ap_japan_custodydispute_120508w/ By Timberly Ross - The Associated Press Posted : Friday Dec 5, 2008 15:41:06 EST OMAHA, Neb. — The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s courts have no jurisdiction over a custody dispute involving a 6-year-old boy, leaving the issue to a Japanese court. In the ruling issued Friday, the court said a Douglas County district judge had no authority to grant joint custody of the boy to his divorced parents, even though the boy was born in Nebraska and had lived here while in the U.S. The court determined that under custody law, the child’s residence is considered to be in Japan. The boy’s father, Stuart Carter, was stationed at Yokosuka, Japan, with the Navy in October 2002, when the boy was about 10 weeks old. When the assignment was up in May 2005, Carter left his wife and brought the child back to Nebraska. According to court documents, Carter did not tell his wife, Nahoko Hata Carter, that he was going back to the U.S. or that he was taking the boy with him. Within days of arriving in Nebraska, he filed for legal separation and custody of his son. Nahoko Hata Carter holds U.S. and Japanese citizenship. Her attorney, Susan Koenig, said Friday that Nahoko Hata Carter, who’s been living Nebraska so she can see her son, plans to file a custody petition in Japan. Ideally, Koenig said, the mother would like to move back there with the boy. A message left Friday for Stuart Carter’s attorney was not immediately returned. The couple married Nov. 11, 1994, when Stuart Carter was stationed in Japan. Because of his military duty, they later lived in California, Kansas and Nebraska, where their son was born. Stuart Carter had argued in court documents that his son’s residence is in Nebraska and that the time they lived in Japan should be considered a temporary absence because the move was for a military assignment. The uniform custody law recognized by Nebraska and most other states allows for such absences, although the conditions are not defined. Also under the law, a foreign country that does not have human rights violations, such as Japan, is treated as though it were another U.S. state for the purposes of such cases. The Nebraska Supreme Court disagreed with Carter and said the couple had “significant ties” to Japan before moving back there in 2002. Koenig said that because of the move, the boy’s first language was Japanese and that he had close contact with his mother’s relatives. “His whole culture, his whole life has been Japan, until he was brought [back] here,” she said. Koenig said that’s why custody should be determined by a Japanese court. She explained that the boy’s day-care provider, doctors and close family members — all of whom would likely testify at a custody hearing — are there. “All the evidence is in Japan,” she said. Court documents The decision in Carter vs. Carter d - CNN’s Kyung Lah REPORTS -](itn-atoneb_files/shapeimage_1.png)
The information on this website concerns a matter of public interest, and is provided for educational and informational purposes only in order to raise public awareness of issues concerning left-behind parents. Unless otherwise indicated, the writers and translators of this website are not lawyers nor professional translators, so be sure to confirm anything important with your own lawyer.
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