disadvantage to the person concerned is to be emphasized, the age for restricting nationality loss should be lowered even further. From the point of view of these considerations, paragraph (2), for example, should be added to the current Article 2 of the Nationality Act to perhaps state “a person who has acquired Japanese nationality under each item of the previous paragraph of this article shall retain such nationality if it becomes clear, after he or she has reached 20 years of age, that he or she does not fulfill the requirements under the abovementioned items” or something to that effect. A solution from a different point of view than the above includes giving retroactive effect to the recognition of parentage in relation to the acquisition of nationality if a person’s descent from a parent which formed the basis for his or her acquiring Japanese nationality is denied and such denial has retroactive effects. This would require a change in Supreme Court jurisprudence or new legislation, but this proposal is also significant in terms of ensuring a consistent interpretation of the effects that parentage recognition have. However, this change would only be effective in situations like the abovementioned case where the biological father (who recognized the person concerned) is also of Japanese nationality, where Japanese nationality is temporarily lost and retroactively re-acquired. In cases where, e.g., the biological parent of the person who has lost Japanese nationality is unknown, the person will remain without a Japanese nationality. Thus, this measure is not sufficient as a preventative measure. (2) Protection As is clear from the sample cases in Category E, if a retroactive loss of nationality occurs due to a change in a person’s personal status, the person concerned would be in practice treated as an illegally staying foreigner in a retroactive manner. However, this treatment is highly unreasonable and harsh in light of the fact that the person concerned has been living as a Japanese national up to that point of time. At least the person’s status as a regular stayer should be ensured by changing the Immigration Bureau’s practice so as to allow the person to acquire residency status (as a foreigner) if he or she is within 30 days of a loss of Japanese nationality.188 188 It is an issue of interpretation of the starting point in ICRRA Article 22-2 (2), which provides that “[a foreign national] … shall apply to the Minister of Justice for the acquisition of a status of residence in accordance with the procedures pursuant to the provisions of an Ordinance of the Ministry of Justice within 30 days, on and after the date of his or her renouncement of Japanese nationality, birth, or other cause.” For example, if the timing of the final court decision on non-existence of parent-child relationship (by which Japanese nationality is treated as having been lost retroactively) is interpreted as the “date of other cause”, then it would be possible to acquire a status of residence by application within 30 days from that date. On the other hand, in immigration practice, sometimes a status of residence is granted even after the 30 days by “special acceptance”, without undergoing the deportation procedures; a flexible approach including “special acceptance” would be most desirable. Concerning this issue, a case was reported in the 25th Statelessness Workshop held on 16 June 2017 at Yotsuya Hoken Center (Tokyo), in which the Immigration Bureau in the 1980s granted a status of residence by special acceptance to an individual 88