As a result, A suddenly started to be treated as an “illegally staying foreigner” and not as a Japanese national as soon the court decision to deny his previous paternal descent was finalized. A filed a lawsuit arguing that such an unfair treatment cannot be accepted and began litigation with the Tokyo District Court to confirm his possession of Japanese nationality, and he simultaneously filed a petition with the Tokyo Family Court to be newly registered under the family register.168 At the same time, to cover all the bases, A approached the Tokyo Immigration Bureau and explained his situation, but the Bureau then started to process A under the deportation procedure, considering him to be a so-called “illegally staying” foreigner. At the end of the deportation procedure, the Minister of Justice, while recognizing the fact that A had indeed “illegally stayed” in Japan, decided to grant Special Permission to Stay (Article 50, ICRRA). With this decision, A became a “regularly staying alien”. A immediately applied for naturalization with the Tokyo Legal Affairs Bureau, and the Minister of Justice permitted his naturalization by processing his case faster than normal cases. A became a Japanese national once again by naturalization. Meanwhile, A’s petition to the family court for registration under the family register was dismissed, and this result did not change when he appealed to the Tokyo High Court and the Supreme Court. With regard to the litigation to confirm A’s possession of Japanese nationality, it had to be withdrawn from the District Court due to A’s compelling personal circumstances.169 (2) Possibility to acquire the nationality of a relevant country a) Japan Article 2(i) of the pre-1984 amendment (which came into force in 1985) provides that a child acquires Japanese nationality at the time of birth “When, at the time of its birth, the father is a Japanese national.” The “father” here, in practice, is understood to refer to the child’s legal father (and not the biological father). It is interpreted that the acquisition 168 Family Register Act, Article 110(1). It is a procedure to request the family court to make an entry into the family register in case the concerned individual is not listed in the family register even though he or she has Japanese nationality. “The court procedure for the permission of creation of a family register is a procedure to create a registered domicile for someone who does not have one, and to make an entry in the family register, by permission of the family court.” “The family court grants permission for creation of a family register, if it is found through the court proceedings that the concerned person without a family register is a Japanese national, and that he or she is found to be “a person who has no registered domicile” as provided in Article 110 (1) of the Family Register Act. See the website of the Ministry of Justice, “Mukosekino Kataga Mizukarawo Kosekini Kisaisurutameno Tetsudukitounitsuite [Procedures to Register Oneself in the Family Register]”, at http://www.moj.go.jp/MINJI/minji04_00047.html#q3-6. 169 None of them has been published. 80