Photo/Illutration Kazuhiro Soda, left, and Kiyoko Kashiwagi appear online at a news conference on Jan. 16. (Yuto Yoneda)

The Tokyo Family Court has left a married couple in perpetual legal limbo after dismissing their challenge to Japan’s one-surname policy, their lawyers said on Jan. 16.

Presiding Judge Yukiko Suguri said the Japanese couple’s marriage, registered in the United States under two surnames, is valid.

But Suguri also said the Chiyoda Ward office in Tokyo did not act illegally when it rejected their marriage registration document because they had selected two family names.

Film director Kazuhiro Soda, 54, and producer Kiyoko Kashiwagi married in the United States in 1997 and kept their separate last names.

They have repeatedly attempted to add their marriage to the family registry at the Chiyoda Ward office.

Married couples in Japan are required to pick only one surname--either the husband’s or the wife’s--in official marriage registration forms.

The ward refused Soda and Kashiwagi’s paperwork because they checked both the box of husband’s surname and the box of wife’s surname for their family name.

In the lawsuit, the family court rejected Chiyoda Ward’s argument that the couple’s marriage would be invalid unless they select a single surname. The judge said that choosing a family name “is not a substantive requirement of marriage.”

However, the court dismissed the couple’s appeal for their marriage to be accepted in the family registry because Civil Law requires a husband and wife to submit a notification of marriage under the same surname.

“Rejecting the registration was not unreasonable,” Suguri said.

The couple intend to appeal the decision to a higher court.

“Is it right that there is no way to register our marriage in the family registry even when the marriage itself is valid?” Soda asked at a news conference on Jan. 16.

“Lifestyles and views on marriage are changing, but the system is not keeping up,” Soda noted.

The couple had filed a previous lawsuit after their marriage registration was rejected by the ward in 2018.

In that case, the Tokyo District Court ruled in 2021 that their marriage itself was valid, but it would not confirm the legal status of the union.

They submitted their marriage registration form again to Chiyoda Ward in 2022, but it was rejected.

The district court had said if the plaintiffs have further complaints, they should take the matter to a family court.

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