Court Orders Tokyo to Find Birth Parents of Man Switched as Newborn
Tokyo, April 21 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo District Court on Monday ordered the Tokyo metropolitan government to track down the birth parents of a 67-year-old man who was accidentally switched as a baby in a now-closed maternity hospital run by the metropolitan government.
Presiding Judge Naoya Hirai ruled that the metropolitan government has the "duty to investigate the biological parents (of the man) based on the birth contract."
According to the complaint in a lawsuit filed by plaintiff Satoshi Egura of Tokyo's Adachi Ward, the woman who raised Egura gave birth to a boy at the maternity hospital on April 10, 1958. The boy was cared for in a newborn nursery, where he was accidentally swapped with the plaintiff.
A DNA test in 2004 found that Egura and his parents were not biologically related.
The plaintiff side demanded that Tokyo identify Egura's biological parents or their heirs, arguing that his right to know about his birth is protected under the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the Japanese government has ratified.
(2025/04/21-16:26)
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