Aiming Toward Accession to the Hague Convention: Prime Minister Indicates the Preparation for the Legal UnderpinningsAfter so many years, and after so much utter excrement about how it would be too difficult to reform family law and police practice in such a way as to force law enforcement officials into treating child abduction as a crime, a first step toward justice.
The prime minister's assertion that "in order to come to a quick resolution, we have to find a path toward making this happen" is only a start -- but a good one.
Some folks still hold a cynical "Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss" view of the Democratic Party of Japan and the ruling coalition -- that all the hopes the people have for change will come crashing down due to inescapable realities. This dismissive view is rapidly losing value. Considering the amount of time, energy and attention that have been lost to going through Prime Minister Hatoyama's and DPJ Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro's finances these first few months under the new regime, I would be willing to be on record as saying the revolution has been moving forward at an encouragingly rapid clip.
