Supreme Court to deliver 1st ruling on Koizumi's Yasukuni visit

TOKYO, June 22 Kyodo

The Supreme Court will deliver its first ruling Friday on a lawsuit over a 2001 visit by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which plaintiffs say was unconstitutional.

The top court's Second Petty Bench led by Justice Isao Imai is highly likely to uphold the 2005 Osaka High Court ruling in favor of Koizumi since no hearing has been held at the highest court. The Supreme Court usually holds a hearing before overruling a lower court decision.

It is also highly unlikely that the top court will give its judgment on whether the premier's visit to the shrine in August 2001 constituted an infringement of the Constitution, legal experts say.

It was Koizumi's first visit to the Shinto shrine as prime minister. He arrived there in an official car accompanied by his staff and signed a visitors' book as the prime minister of the Cabinet.

In July 2005, the Osaka High Court rejected the plaintiffs' claim that the visit violated the constitutional provision separating religion from state affairs and that it imposed mental suffering on them, upholding an Osaka District Court ruling of February 2004.

Both the district and high courts issued no opinion on the constitutionality of Koizumi's shrine visit.

The district court ruled that the shrine visit was an official one because Koizumi ''went there in the capacity of prime minister.'' But the high court refrained from touching on whether the visit was official or not.

The plaintiffs are mainly relatives of the war dead and people of religious faith such as Buddhists and Christians.

Koizumi's annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors convicted war criminals along with the war dead, have drawn sharp criticism from China, South Korea and other Asian countries.

Koizumi has visited the shrine once a year since assuming the premiership. He last visited Yasukuni Shrine on Oct. 7, 2005.

In similar suits, the Fukuoka District Court and the Osaka High Court ruled in April 2004 and September 2005, respectively, that Koizumi's 2001 shrine visit was unconstitutional while rejecting plaintiffs' demand for damages. Both decisions became final since the government could not file appeals.

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