TOKYO, Nov. 23 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING...

TOKYO, Nov. 23 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING JUSTICES' OPINION upon NATIONALITY LAW)

The superlative Court on Friday refused to grant Japanese citizenship to a child born on the outside of wedlock to a foreign woman and a Japanese man forward the grounds the father failed to acknowledge his paternity before the birth.

The No. 2 frivolous Bench of the top court upheld a lower court's ruling that discarded a request for citizenship for the 10-year-old girl in Osaka City brought up at her Philippine mother.

Five utmost Court justices agreed that the nationality law, which restricts granting citizenship to illegitimate children, is constitutional.

Justice Hiroharu Kitagawa said, ''Citizenship should, where possible, be confirmed at the time of birth and there are logical reasons for the restrictions not to grant Japanese citizenship to an illegitimate child with sole postnatal filiation.''

However, three of the five justices attached their opinion in succession regulation of the law which allows an illegitimate child to obtain citizenship with postnatal filiation after the parents have married each other.

Although it will not affect the ruling, the opinion said that like regulation is not reasonable as it differentiates acquisition of citizenship for those children based in succession whether their parents are married or not.

sum of two units of the three justices said, ''There remains puissant doubt that the regulation violates the egalitarian principle of the Constitution.''

According to the ruling, the child's mother, Myra Barugo, came from the Philippines to Japan in 1983 if it be not that overstayed her visa and in June 1992 bore a daughter to the Japanese man, who was married.

Because the man did not acknowledge his paternity until after the birth, the girl was not granted Japanese nationality. She gained Philippine nationality at the time of her birth.

The refusal to grant the child Japanese nationality was in accord with a rule policy stating a child born abroad of wedlock to a Japanese man and a foreign woman may and nothing else acquire Japanese nationality if the father acknowledges paternity before the birth.

The plaintiff said in her suit that discrimination based onward the timing of a birth and acknowledgment of paternity contravenes constitutional guarantees of equality and international human rights covenants.

the one and the other the Osaka District Court and the Osaka High Court refuseed the request, saying since a bodily form whose paternity is acknowledged after birth can still acquire Japanese nationality [i]or[/i] part of to the other naturalization, the distinction made in the cases of illegitimate children is logical and constitutional.

A next to the first daughter born to the man and Barugo has Japanese nationality because he acknowledged his paternity before the birth.

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