Japan’s Marriage Law 1. Legal provisions on marriage such as age of marriage

(1) Japan does not have a special marriage law. The laws and regulations regulating marriage and family relationships are scattered in the "Relatives Chapter" and "Inheritance Chapter" of the Civil Code. Japan stipulates that marriage should be based on the wishes of the parties involved and does not require parental consent. Men can register for marriage when they are over 18 years old and women over 16 years old. Marriage between Japanese citizens does not necessarily require a ceremony. It can be registered or not. There is no legal obstacle to this. However, if it is not registered, its related rights and interests will not be protected by law.

(2) Divorce must wait six months before getting married again. Japanese citizens can also register for divorce by agreement. If the two parties cannot reach an agreement, they need to go to court for a ruling. Only six months after the divorce can you register for marriage again. Japanese divorce by agreement does not involve property content, and property issues are regulated by special laws.

(3) South Korea only has marriage regulations. Like Japan, South Korea does not have a special marriage law, but it does have a special marriage regulation. The marriage of Korean citizens must be registered just like Japan and my country. South Korea stipulates that men and women who are over 20 years old can apply for registration of marriage. Anyone who is over 16 years old can also apply for registration with the consent of both parents.

(4) The laws of Japan and South Korea do not protect cohabitation. Both Japan and South Korea stipulate that marriage between a man and a woman must be registered before it can be legally recognized, and their legitimate rights and interests can be protected by law. The law does not protect the cohabitation of unmarried persons or the cohabitation of a married person with a third party. If a married person cohabits with a third party, both parties cannot register their household registration. However, if a child is born after living together, the married person can adopt the illegitimate child. The above-mentioned two countries do not carry out administrative intervention in the cohabitation behavior between citizens, believing that this falls within the scope of private law and is an individual civil act.

2. Marriage registration management agency

(1) Marriage registration in Japan is not limited to the place of residence. There are 47 capitals, prefectures, prefectures, and prefectures in Japan, which are divided into cities, towns, and villages. Marriage or divorce between Japanese citizens or between Japanese citizens and foreign citizens can be registered at the municipal (town, village) government affairs office in the place of birth (place of origin), permanent residence (current place of residence) or place of work and residence. Registration is carried out in the hall, and the household registration section is responsible for the registration work.

(2) Marriage registration and household registration management belong to the same department. In Japan, marriage registration is the responsibility of the Municipal Household Registration Division. Marriage registration is carried out at the same time as household registration. When the municipal government approves marriage registration, it will register household registration changes at the same time, that is, the names of each spouse and related information will be noted in the household registration books of both parties. Japan's system of integrating marriage and household registration allows the marital status of individual citizens to be recorded in detailed household registration books. Precisely because of Japan’s management system that combines household registration and marriage management, the marital status of Japanese citizens is very clear and there will be no duplicate marriage registrations. Therefore, they can confidently say that there has been no bigamy in Japan in the past two decades.

(3) Registration of marriage or divorce between Korean citizens must be done at the government affairs hall of the municipal or district government where they live. There is no registration at the city level in South Korea (except for municipalities). Marriage registration is also combined with household registration like Japan, and is the responsibility of the Civil Service Division (i.e. Civil Affairs Division).

(4) The marriage registration of Japanese and Korean citizens and foreign citizens is the same as that of domestic citizens, and is handled by the same registration agency, regardless of domestic and international (foreign-related).

3. Several special provisions for marriage registration

(1) One party may be present when applying for marriage registration. When registering a marriage in Japan, both parties to the marriage need to fill out the "Marriage (Divorce) Registration Application Form" and provide their household registration copies. However, both parties are not absolutely required to be present. One party can submit the application form and household registration copies. If both parties are unable to submit the registration materials in person for some reason, a third party can submit them on their behalf. Because the Japanese acceptance agency will verify with me.

In addition, Japanese law also stipulates that if someone forges a notarized document, or impersonates the signature of the other party, and registers bigamy or divorce, the relevant marriage parties can go to court to sue, and the registered marriage or divorce will be invalid. At the same time, in accordance with the "Criminal Law" of Japan, " "Crime of dishonesty", those who commit fraud will be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison. So no one can forge the other's signature on these things.

(2) Marriage registration in Japan and South Korea is not done on the spot. The Household Registration Section that handles marriage registration in Japan has to go through a one-week review of basic personal information, especially the application confirmation of the other party who is not present, and only then can the marriage be registered. After the registration takes effect, the registration authority (if it is at the place where the parties to the marriage are registered) will transmit the relevant information of the parties to the marriage to the household registration management departments of two other places (i.e. the place of birth and the place of current work and residence) through the computer network.

In South Korea, the processing time for marriage registration applications is 4 days if both parties are in the same jurisdiction, and 10 days if one party is not in the same jurisdiction, including one party who is a foreign citizen.

(3) In Japan, there is no registration fee for citizen registration of marriage or divorce, but a certificate production fee is charged. Japanese law does not require a special marriage certificate for registration, so there is no marriage or divorce certificate similar to ours. However, if the marriage parties need to keep a souvenir after registering their marriage, they can request the registration agency to issue a "Certificate of Acceptance of Marriage". The registration agency will also issue a certificate of acceptance, but will charge a production fee for the "Certificate of Acceptance of Marriage". There are two types of "Certificate of Marriage Acceptance". One is printed directly on a computer on A4 paper and costs 350 yen. The other is the "Certificate of Marriage Acceptance" written by a calligrapher, which charges a slightly higher fee. It costs 1,400 yen. Japan's marriage and divorce acceptance certificate legally only proves that the registration authority has accepted the marriage and divorce registration of this couple, but it does not prove the current real marriage of this couple. For example, a couple registered their marriage at the registration agency 20 years ago, but there have been great changes in the past 20 years. They may have divorced long ago, and some of the parties may even have been married and divorced many times and are still without a spouse. The "Certificate of Acceptance of Marriage" (i.e., the marriage certificate in our country) 20 years ago cannot prove the current marital status at all. Therefore, the "Certificate of Marriage Acceptance" in Japan is just a memorial and has no legal significance. Most people do not go to the registration office to receive this "Certificate of Marriage Acceptance" after applying for marriage registration approval. If the parties need to prove their true marital status, they should apply to the registration agency. The marriage registration agency will issue a household registration certificate based on the household registration records in the database. This is the real marriage certificate in Japan, because this kind of certificate only It is to record the current actual marital status. Japan's weakening of the role of certificates has achieved very good results. That is to say, no one in Japan will resort to any means to defraud or forge a marriage certificate. Issuing this kind of certificate is not free. It charges the same production fee as the certificate. When the household registration authority issues the certificate, it also charges a production fee of 350 yen (A4 printing paper). This is an important part of the government's provision of public services.

(4) Japanese and Korean citizens do not have pre-marital physical examination procedures when they get married. Officials in charge of marriage registration in Japan also don’t quite understand why pre-marital physical examinations are required. In Japan, relevant knowledge is taught as early as middle school students, so that teenagers can master relevant knowledge in time and treat sex and marriage correctly. According to reports, the number of young people of working age living together in Japan has risen to about 66. Due to financial independence and fear of losing their jobs after having children after marriage, most women choose to live together but not get married. The average age of marriage for Japanese women is gradually getting older, rising from 20.3 years ago ten years ago to 26.8 years now. Moreover, a considerable proportion of them do not have children immediately after marriage or do not have children, fearing that childbirth will affect their continued work. Japan and South Korea are two countries that have never required premarital examinations, nor have they linked marriage to childbirth. The government has no proposal to require premarital examinations before marriage. Married men and women do not require each other to undergo a premarital examination before agreeing to marry.

In addition, it is reported that Japanese citizens pay more attention to personalized pre-pregnancy consultation. Couples generally seek targeted fertility consultation from relevant professional doctors before they want to have children. This is a very important measure for them to ensure that their children can have eugenics.

4. The number of international marriages in Japan is increasing day by day.

By the end of 2002, the number of international marriages in Japan (what our country refers to as foreign-related marriages) had increased to more than 270,000, of which nearly 70% were Chinese, Korean or Korean. Statistics from the Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice of Japan show that the number of people who apply to settle in Japan on the grounds of being a spouse of an international marriage accounts for 14 of the total number of people who apply for settlement. From 1996 to now, there have been more than 20,000 Chinese parties in international marriages in Osaka, and they are mainly concentrated in Shanghai and surrounding areas. Since it is popular among young Japanese women not to get married or not get married at an early age, it is generally difficult for men over 40 to find women under 30, so they all turn their attention overseas, and there are more international marriages.

5. Inspiration from the marriage registration work in Japan and South Korea

(1) Advanced e-government brings convenient marriage registration services. According to reports: Japan is one of the first countries in Asia to launch e-government. In October 1993, the Japanese government regarded government informatization as one of the important contents of administrative reform and formulated a plan to promote government informatization. In March 2000, the Japanese government began to launch the "e-Government Project" and proposed the "e-Japan Strategy" in January 2001. The goal is to establish corresponding e-commerce and e-government regulations and realize e-government.

The development of e-government in South Korea basically belongs to the "government-led" model. In April 2002, the Korean government formulated a five-year information promotion plan, namely: "e-KoreaVision 2006". The plan will promote online government services, strengthen personal mobile services and public participation in the policy development process. The goal is that by 2006, all public and administrative services will be provided online, and all civic and community activities will be conducted online.

The e-government systems in Japan and South Korea have demonstrated many advantages in operation:

(1) Unified and efficient e-government in household administration and marriage management provides marriage parties with Effortless, time-saving, convenient and fast marriage registration service. In the past, when residents wanted to register their marriages, they had to go to the municipal or district government to get the corresponding forms, fill them out and then submit them to the municipal or district government. All review and processing procedures were done manually, which required multiple trips. Now, when residents apply for marriage registration, they can download electronic marriage applications online from the national unified management system. After accepting the application, confirm it and provide relevant certificates and approval documents online. For applicants, all procedures can be completed online. Things that could not be done no matter how many times you ran in the past can now be done in just one time, even while sitting at home or in the office, and are basically not restricted by location.

(2) A large amount of system data ensures the accuracy and accuracy of marital status. The huge data management system ensures the effective implementation of government e-government. In Japan and South Korea, the government attaches great importance to gay information related to citizens, establishing a unified database, giving full play to the role of various government databases, and promoting the supplement, development and use of databases by various departments. This detailed Demographic data and detailed marriage household registration management information are shared electronically online, making the marriage registration review work fast and accurate. And ensure citizens’ needs for certificates of various statuses such as marriage, household registration, and birth.

(3) Realize the sharing of administrative information and effectively solve legal problems. The sharing of resources from various government departments in Japan and South Korea ensures the authenticity of various data.

In various affairs, the government does not check (nor recognize) the "Certificate of Marriage Acceptance" held by the parties concerned, but verifies the household registration certificate issued by the household registration office for the parties based on system data records. This kind of This approach has achieved very good results, and has avoided the common problems in my country's marriage management work, such as pretending to be a false person to obtain a marriage certificate for personal purposes, finding someone to intercede or interceding with leaders to obtain a marriage certificate illegally, or even simply forging fake marriage certificates and marriage certificates. There are many loopholes in marriage management such as the inability to prove the true situation and the lack of proof of marital status. These legal problems of ours are all avoided in Japan and South Korea due to the informatization of management work and the sharing of data networking resources among various departments.

(2) The integration of the marriage registration agency and the household registration management agency is also a benign mechanism that effectively promotes marriage registration work. The marriage registration agencies and household registration management agencies in Japan and South Korea are integrated into one. This mechanism is very conducive to the management of government affairs where people are the main body. Marriage and household registration are inherently an inseparable whole, and the birth and dissolution of marriage must involve corresponding changes in household registration. When accepting a marriage application, the government's Household Registration Section (or Civil Affairs Section) will simultaneously pull out the household registration booklet of the parties concerned from the system for verification. When approving the marriage, it will record the basic information of both parties' spouses in the household registration booklet. Any false behavior (such as falsely reporting age or claiming a spouse is unmarried, etc.) can be detected in the household registration book and registration will be refused in a timely manner. Combining the two into one not only reduces duplication of procedures, but also reduces government administrative personnel. More importantly, this management system achieves the real purpose of management, which is the speed of public service and the accuracy of administrative management. This kind of management system is exactly what our country can absorb in its administrative management.

(3) The public service system and the government affairs hall set up by the government have improved the efficiency of the government. The halls on the first floor of municipal governments or district governments in Japan and South Korea are the government affairs halls. The Household Registration Section (or Civil Affairs Section) is responsible for administrative matters involving basic issues of citizens, such as marriage, birth, death registration, etc. In addition to the government's official website for citizens to inquire, the government affairs hall also makes all service procedures public and accepts business inquiries. The fees for issuing certificates are also clearly disclosed, which ensures that government management is fair and transparent. In both Japan and South Korea, there is no phenomenon of the government charging arbitrary fees for handling public affairs or charging for various services. The funds required by the Japanese government to handle public services are provided by the finance, including various administrative expenses and database maintenance. Our inspection team specially visited the government affairs halls of Japan and South Korea to observe their marriage registration and other public affairs work. In addition to charging fees for certificates and certificates, we have never found any other charging services. This is worthy of our reference and learning. of.

6. Thoughts on my country’s marriage registration management work from Japan and South Korea inspections

In August 2003, the State Council promulgated the “Marriage Registration Regulations”, which made major changes to the marriage registration system. Reforms have abolished the practice of marriage registration being certified by the employer, and instead required the parties to make a signature statement without a spouse; added provisions for re-registration of marriages, invalid marriages and revocable marriages, etc. These reform measures have adapted to the requirements of the times and fully reflect the government's adherence to the principles of public service, people-oriented, acting in accordance with the law, and giving priority to efficiency. However, during the implementation process, there are still some legal and regulatory issues that are difficult to resolve.

For example: the work unit certificate has been cancelled, but citizens still need proof of marital status when handling civil and commercial activities such as housing purchases, bank loans, and marriage abroad; another example: due to the lack of overall system management of marriage registration and accurate marriage data, restricting citizens to only register marriages at the place of household registration; this brings unnecessary trouble to the marriage parties where neither party works in the place of household registration, and also leads to substitution registration, fraudulent marriage certificates, Legal issues such as difficulties in re-affirming the validity of marriage registration caused by forging fake marriage certificates.

In addition, the main basis for determining whether the marriage of the parties is legal and valid is the original archive record of the marriage registration, which is also the most direct and accurate proof of the marital status of the parties. Not only is it not taken seriously in my country's marriage management work, And a lot of it was lost with the changes and adjustments in divisions, institutions and personnel. So far, there are very few registration agencies that can completely preserve marriage registration files spanning 20 years. Due to the many changes in marriage certificates over the past few decades and the proliferation of fake certificates, it is difficult to distinguish the authenticity of marriage certificates. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for marriage registration agencies to issue relevant marriage registration file records. Since we do not have a database or information network, it is still a difficult problem in judicial practice. Since the vast majority of grassroots registration agencies have not implemented information management and are still in the manual operation stage, they not only fail to save accurate information, but also change it at will, commit fraud or lose a large number of files. Although some places have begun to implement information management, the systems adopted vary from place to place. Except for a few provinces and cities, most places have not yet established a comprehensive database, nor have they been able to quickly establish an inter-provincial network, let alone communicate with the household registration management department. Basic personal information is connected. Therefore, relevant information cannot be used in the review and issuance of marriage registrations (lack of connection and timely updating also results in the inaccuracy and incompleteness of this information). Not only is it a waste of resources, but it also fails to truly address the people’s needs for government services. If we refer to the system management of Japan and South Korea to realize the full sharing of information resources such as population and household registration, and revise relevant methods at the appropriate time, the problems listed above will be easily solved. To this end, we should focus on solving the following issues:

(1) Formulate and implement the "National Marriage Registration Information Management Plan" as soon as possible. It will take three years to establish and implement the information management work of marriage registration agencies at all levels. We must take into account the characteristics of the 8 million to 9 million registered marriages in the country every year and the huge data of nearly 400 million marriage registration information in the past 50 years, incorporate it into the overall work plan of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, strive for financial support, and establish a nationwide The marriage registration management connection system realizes inter-provincial network connections and establishes data centers on a provincial basis; local civil affairs departments at all levels provide supporting funds and complete regional network supporting projects. In order to improve the level of modernization of government management, we can achieve online marriage registration application procedures, automation of internal affairs processing, digitalization of marriage file management, and systematization of marriage certificate issuance. The implementation and completion of this plan will solve the problem of insufficient staffing in various places to the greatest extent, and at the same time, it can effectively solve the concerns of relevant departments and personnel about false statements by parties, the emergence of invalid marriages and bigamy issues, and the issuance of certificates without marriage registration records. issues such as limitations and inaccuracies.

(2) Establish an "effective collaboration mechanism for marriage registration and household registration management." This will avoid the current information asymmetry caused by the separation of marriage registration management and household registration management and the many loopholes in the work that result. At present, my country's marriage registration management agency and household registration management agency belong to two different departments, civil affairs and public security. They work independently according to their own processes, and their respective information and resources are isolated from each other, resulting in limitations in social public services. ity and inaccuracy. The management of government public service areas only simply realizes informatization without reorganizing and transforming the government's organizational structure and administrative business processes. In this way, e-government is very limited and still cannot meet the needs of the public to the greatest extent. Of course, we have also seen that under the current situation, it is difficult to achieve a unified management mechanism in the short term. Therefore, we can partially integrate traditional government management mechanisms and operating models in the field of information management by establishing an effective information collaboration mechanism to achieve a benign mechanism that integrates marriage registration management and household registration management. Gradually implement a network interactive system with horizontal departments such as household registration and family planning to ensure the accuracy of marriage registration information.

Thus, the certification work will be gradually reformed, and the marriage registration agency will gradually issue accurate and valid marriage record certificates at any time based on the needs of the parties and the latest records in the marriage database, so as to solve the needs of the marriage parties and relevant departments for marriage status certification, and effectively protect the marriage parties. rights and interests, thus fundamentally solving the problems of marriage certificate forgery and a series of legal disputes caused by some parties illegally obtaining marriage and divorce certificates for personal purposes. It can not only prevent illegal marriages but also curb the occurrence of bigamy.

(3) Coordinate and resolve the issue of marriage status certificate fees. Following the practices of Japan and South Korea, marriage registration agencies charge the same production fee for issuing marriage status certificates as for issuing certificates to make up for the lack of office funds for grassroots marriage registration agencies. There is no registration fee for marriage registration in Japan or South Korea, but a production fee is charged for the issuance of a certificate. This is actually the case in our country. Our country does not charge a registration fee for marriage registration, but the issuance of a marriage certificate charges a cost (9 yuan) just like Japan and South Korea. In addition, due to changes in the situation, more and more citizens are requesting marriage registration agencies to issue certificates such as being unmarried based on files. The government registration agency should also have the responsibility to issue the above certificates to the parties, but it should also learn from the practices of Japan and South Korea and collect marriage certificates in the same way. Cost of production to alleviate the shortage of administrative funds. Sufficient administrative funds are also an important guarantee for ensuring the integrity, efficiency and normal operation of marriage registration agencies.

Conclusion: Paying attention to people-oriented civil affairs work is in line with the requirements of the development of the times and is also the need to build a harmonious society. Transforming marriage registration from institutional management to humanized government public services will help us better resolve various contradictions that arise in the process of social transformation and maintain social stability.