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Marriage For All Japan's post-court session debriefing stream is about to start! I will try to sum up what happened in Tokyo district court today afterwards. https://twitter.com/marriage4all_/status/1334075401857974273
Today's court session was the one postponed in May and there has been a judge change (lawyers pointed out judge changes are a very common thing in general), so the hearing started with a summary of plaintiffs' arguments made so far in previous hearings 1/
Such a summary is also a common practice every time the judge changes. In summary, they argue that lack of marriage quality violates articles 13 and 14 of the Constitution and that Article 24 doesn't really limit marriage to straight couples only 2/
As far as I got it, the argument about Article 24 is mostly based on the historical context and its origin -- it was meant to advance women's rights, not outlaw same-sex marriage. This thread summarises the issue: 3/ https://twitter.com/writerofscratch/status/1294712119552868353
On the stream, the state's claims so far were also summarised: their main argument is that Article 24 "doesn't envisage same-sex marriage" (同性婚を想定していない). Even when the historical context was pointed out, the state argued that it "still doesn't envisage it" 4/
The state also maintains that 両性 ("both sexes/genders") used in Article 24 can mean only "man and woman". Nevertheless the phrasing of it is quite vague and there's a whole scholarly debate about its interpretation anyway 5/
Last of the state's claims is that marriage is an institution for "reproduction" (生殖). MFAJ lawyers previously pointed out that there are straight couples who don't want to / can't have children, but AFAIK this point wasn't re-addressed by the state 6/
Generally speaking, MFAJ lawyers are trying to argue that marriage and its role in society is much more than just reproduction (quite obviously) 7/
So far, the sessions have focused on "opinion statements" (意見申述) and exchange of written documents (書面) – spoken statements are prepared beforehand and are kind of like a speech; documents are submitted beforehand 8/
(BTW I'm sorry but my legal vocabulary is really limited in English + I think Japanese judicial system is quite different from UK/US one, so localising everything might cause confusion too, that's why I also give the kanji)
AFAIK general idea is that one side submits their arguments in a written document, then the other side has time to prepare their response, which they submit before the next session, and so on 9/
At this stage, MFAJ requested 尋問, which is a type of in-court, unprepared cross-examination, in which plaintiffs answer questions from both sides. This is meant to constitute the main evidence in the case 10/
Previously in Sapporo, such a request was accepted, and all plaintiffs and some family members (as additional witnesses) were allowed to testify 11/