In May, a same sex couple made news when the city of Omura in Nagasaki Prefecture allowed them to be indicated as the equivalent of a common law couple in their resident certificate, or juminhyo. It is the first time a same sex couple has received the indication in a juminhyo. Since then, at least two other cities, Kanuma in Tochigi Prefecture and Mitoyo in Kagawa Prefecture, as well as Setagaya Ward in Tokyo, have said they are considering making the same indications if a same sex couple want to do so on their juminhyo. 

But not so fast, said the central government. According to the Asahi Shimbun, the Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), Takeaki Matsumoto, held a press conference on July 9 saying that there is a “possibility” that such an indication would cause “practical problems.” Apparently, the ministry had already contacted the mayor of Omura, Hiroshi Sonoda, in writing, telling him that juminhyo are official documents under national law, which Omura “did not follow” when it made the indication for the unnamed same sex couple in their household juminhyo. Sonoda replied that he had no intention of changing the indication and requested that the ministry clarify what it meant by “practical problems.” It is the mayor’s understanding that local governments administer resident certificates at their own discretion, since juminhyo are necessary for managing social security and social welfare matters at the local level. By extension, they can also be used to grant power of attorney. However, in many cases, such matters involve the central government, as well, so the MIC feels it has some say on how resident certificates should be administered. The MIC’s thinking is that if same sex couples are treated the same as common law couples in the document, social welfare officials will have a difficult time judging if an applicant is eligible for certain social services, even though an official at Omura City Hall told Asahi that the office received a call from an MIC official on July 8 who admitted that the indication in the juminhyo “should be decided by the local government.”

But the MIC didn’t stop there. A later Asahi article said that on July 9, the ministry sent notifications to all prefectures saying pretty much what Matsumoto said at the press conference. While Matsumoto’s statement about the matter was vague, its intention seemed to be to tell local governments that they can’t make such indications in the juminhyo, though, as Sonoda pointed out, it isn’t clear if the ministry can force the issue.

Omura’s move was inevitable. In recent years, some local governments have passed ordinances that recognize same sex couples as couples, but these ordinances do not give same sex couples the same rights as legally married couples. However, in March the Supreme Court decided that someone in a same sex relationship is eligible for compensation provided by the government to victims of crimes or victims’ families if that person’s same sex partner was the victim of a crime. The court’s rationale was that since common law heterosexual couples qualified for such compensation, same sex couples should as well.

In the Asahi article, a Nihon University professor disputed the MIC’s position, saying that the administration of resident certificates is not work that has been “entrusted” to local governments by the central government, so it is, indeed, completely up to the local government how they carry out the process. In addition, he doesn’t see how there would be a “problem” in indicating a same sex couple on the juminhyo, since on the document there are boxes for gender and relationships, so, as in the case of the Omura couple, one partner would be the head of household (setainushi, a problematic word for many since it literally means “owner of the household”) and the other would be indicated by their relationship to the head of household (HOH), in this case “husband,” and since both partners would have the “male” gender box checked, it would be easy to tell that this was a same sex couple. The professor says that Omura recognized, in accordance with the Supreme Court decision, that allowing heterosexual common law couples to register as partnerships without allowing same sex couples the same thing is discrimination. 

The reason this particular case is so important, and why the central government is determined to nip it in the bud, is that the juminhyo is administratively a more pertinent document in terms of receiving services than the family register (koseki), which is the main obstacle to legalizing same sex marriage. The koseki’s main use is confirming Japanese nationality and family ties. The juminhyo establishes the legal residence of a person, regardless of whether that person is a Japanese national. (Technically, a foreigner’s residence card is their juminhyo.) And while it is normally issued to an individual, like the koseki it can represent a household. Unlike the koseki, the household does not have to be made up of blood relations. 

The resident certificate is actually a subsidiary document of the larger jumin kihon daicho, which is kept by the local government. When you move, you retrieve this document from your former local government and bring it to the local government of your new abode and they make a new document. The document contains the head of household’s name, address, gender, social security information, and eligibility for receiving services, and likewise information for other members of the household. It thus facilitates certain matters automatically. For instance, when a registered child reaches school age, the local government automatically sends a notification for enrollment. The juminhyo is also used for automatic voter registration. 

When an individual needs a copy of their juminhyo for any reason they go to their local government office and request one. They can receive either an individual juminhyo or a household juminhyo, and it is the household juminhyo that is at the core of the Omura matter. If a person lives alone, they automatically become the HOH on their juminhyo. If they live with family members, the household juminhyo lists them as such, but, unlike the koseki, there is no heirarchy involved. Though the juminhyo has a head of household—either spouse can qualify—the offspring are not listed as first daughter, second son, etc., but simply indicated by their gender. 

When a household is made up of people who are not related, as in a shared house or apartment, each resident can be their own head of household. In some cases, unrelated individuals will be listed in one juminhyo as dokyonin (roommate), which implies that the roommate is financially or otherwise dependent on the HOH. However, in most cases dokyonin are treated as being independent for administrative purposes. The exception is people who are in a common law marriage, which is usually confirmed by local authorities by checking the partners’ kosekis to make sure neither is legally married to someone else. So for a common law couple who wish to be registered as a household in the juminhyo, one partner becomes the HOH and the other a “husband” or “wife,” depending on the gender, with the parenthetical remark that the relationship is “unregistered.” The couple, as a household, then qualify for most of the services granted to legally married couples. In the case of the Omura same sex couple, one of the partners opted to be the HOH, with his partner listed on the juminhyo as “husband (unregistered).”

So while same sex couples cannot legally marry in Japan, in Omura, at least, they can be treated as married couples as long as they are registered as a household in their juminhyo, which essentially means that even if the couple are not legally wed they are administratively an economic unit for tax and social security purposes. This is what bothers the central government, and is why they are trying to persuade local governments not to administer the juminhyo to allow same sex households; though, technically, they cannot prevent them from doing what they want to do with the juminhyo. 

Many same sex couples, not to mention heterosexual couples who don’t marry in order to keep their birth names, see this option as more meaningful than changing laws having to do with the koseki, but a large portion still want to be recognized by the state as being married, and continue to work toward that goal. One member of a same sex couple in Aichi Prefecture, for example, reportedly went to court to change their surname to their partner’s so as to take on the appearance of a marriage, which basically is playing by the authorities’ rules without any chance of winning the game, because as long as the koseki system—which mandates one surname for married couples—prevails in its present form, same sex couples will not be able to marry. Getting the same economic and social rights as married couples through the juminhyo seems to be the best way to get close to that dream right now.