Change of Status

QUESTION

I changed my nationality from Filipino to Japanese three years ago. I have been planning to invite my mother to Japan and wish to live with her since she lives alone in the Philippines and is already weak. She came to Japan with a Temporary Stay visa last May. I consulted with various lawyers on my mother’s issue, which is to make her reside in Japan for a long period. However, the advice from different lawyers confused me so I decided to entrust the task to just one lawyer who seems reliant.

Unfortunately, my mother’s application for change of status was disapproved by the Immigration in June. I asked the reason of disapproval to the lawyer in charge, but his response was pointless. I went to the Immigration Bureau and asked the reason directly. The officer in charge told me “We could not accept the relation between mother and child since we found the discrepancy in your case”. While my mother told me that “There is no worth for which you entrusted the lawyer,” I am indignant in which “Although my application for naturalization was granted with the same documents submitted to the Immigration, why the Immigration did not accept these documents and our relation was not recognized as mother and child.”

Please explain.

Ma. Theresa from Shizuoka

ANSWER

Please find my answer and comment as follows:

1. Your mother’s question

Referring to your mother’s doubt and question that “A lawyer should go well into anything when a client ask him. Why doesn’t it become so?” Unfortunately, it does not pass along such unreasonableness on legislation in Japan. If one lawyer of a certain country can carry out all process that your mother has said to you, it is not necessary to make a statute for every country. That is, since the basis statute by which all of your birth certificate and marriage certificate are delivered by NSO in the Philippines based on the Philippines Family Law, it is impossible to correct these certificates by a Japanese court or Japanese public institution. Moreover, the performance of which Japanese lawyer file these corrections to the RTC in the Philippines for you after he/she makes a voyage to the Philippines are absolutely forbidden by the law of the Philippines.

2. Your question and indignation

On the other hand, referring to your question and indignation, now, please find the following answer/reasons for your questions. That is, the main examination points in the “Application for Naturalization” to acquire Japanese nationality is that “whether you carry out the law marriage to Japanese, and are living as husband and wife in actual condition or not” based on Article 8 of Nationality Act. Therefore, it is not very important who your mother is, whom brothers and sisters are, where and how they are doing, and these are just to reference information only to the last.

3. Legal character of the application for Change of Status

As you can see, the application for Change of Status is to decide the approval/disapproval by the Immigration Bureau, and it is supposed to be judged by the discretion of the Minister of Justice whether it should be approved or not. Then, the most important point of approval/disapproval referring to the change to other status from “Temporary Stay” to another status is especially that an applicant can fulfill the criteria equipped with the “very unavoidable situation” specified in the third clause of Article 20 of the Immigration Law after it examines carefully.

4. The measure, which you should carry out from now on

Therefore, the Immigration authority denied her application for change of status since they found out the discrepancy in your documents/her documents, which show that “the relation/identification between your mother and you is “opaque” or “not being substantiated as mother and child.” Actually, so many disapproval cases are consisted and depended on these “discrepancy.”

Under these situations, you should request to be issued the official documents, which the correction matter was indicated from the public institution (RTC/NSO/LCR) in the Philippines at any cost after you would have stated “the reason and situation” which these discrepancies produced.

I hope you understand that the authentication system in Japan is completely different to the Philippines. And even if you would have been authenticated these discrepancies at the notary public office in Japan and issued the written authentication, all the organizations that should carry out these corrections must be the public institution in the Philippines, but not been dealt with it in a Japanese public institution.

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