3RD LD: Court rejects suit over Koizumi, Ishihara visits to Yasukuni

Japan Policy & Politics, May 2, 2005

TOKYO, April 26 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING KOIZUMI'S COMMENTS)

The Tokyo District Court rejected Tuesday a damages suit filed by about 1,000 people, including South Koreans, who said visits to war-related Yasukuni Shrine by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara were unconstitutional.

In handing down the ruling, Presiding Judge Hiroyuki Shibata said, ''Even if the plaintiffs had their rights based on freedom of religion (the situation does not warrant that) these rights should be legally protected.''

The court did not rule on whether visits to the shrine -- which is regarded by critics as a symbol of Japan's militarist past -- violated the constitutional separation of religion and state. It also did not make any judgment on whether the visits were made in private or official capacity.

The plaintiffs had demanded that Koizumi, Ishihara and the central and Tokyo metropolitan governments pay 30,000 yen to each claimant in compensation for damage caused by the visits, and asked the court to order the two not to visit the shrine again.

The plaintiffs intend to appeal the ruling.

The ruling was issued at a time when Japan's relations with China and South Korea have been strained over contentious issues including history textbooks, and Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines convicted World War II Class-A war criminals along with the war dead.

Commenting on the ruling, Koizumi told reporters he sees no point in the lawsuit against his visits.

''I don't understand why the matter is put on trial,'' Koizumi said at his office. ''I don't think this is an issue to be tried at the bar.''

The Tokyo court was the last of six district courts to rule on seven similar lawsuits filed by more than 2,000 plaintiffs combined. All of the courts -- in Chiba, Osaka, Matsuyama, Fukuoka, Naha and Tokyo -- rejected the damages demands.

The Fukuoka District Court was the only one to issue a constitutional judgment, stating in April last year that Koizumi's shrine visit in August 2001 violated the Constitution's provision on the separation of religion and state because he went in his official capacity. The ruling became final after no appeals were filed against it.

Takeo Kawamura, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Tokyo suit, said, ''We find this ruling unreasonable and extremely regrettable.''

Akira Ibori, another lawyer, said, ''The ruling comes off as endorsing (the status quo) at a time (Japan's) historical perception is being put into question and will just incur the displeasure and disappointment of Asian nations.''

Kawamura at the same time said the court also recognized that it understood the feelings of South Korean plaintiffs.

In the ruling, Judge Shibata said the court ''understands that the plaintiffs have interpreted the words and actions of the premier (and governor) in their shrine visits as an affirmation of (Japan's) past war of aggression given that the line between making such visits official or private was left ambiguous.''

Shortly after the ruling was handed down at 2 p.m., two South Korean women, who were among the some 700 plaintiffs from South Korea, expressed outrage and frustration and vowed to continue on with their fight.

''Sixty years after the war, Japan has not taken any step forward to address our plight either on the political or legal scene...it has not shown any sign of remorse and this kind of posture in politics is being supported by the judicial system,'' 60-year-old Yang Soo Nim, whose father-in-law is enshrined in Yasukuni against the family's will, told reporters in Korean.

Yang said that given such an attitude she believes Japan has no right to exert leadership in Asia and she will not accept Japan's bid to gain a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council until it has sincerely showed remorse ''not only by words but by deeds.''

Kim Jun Gim, 67, also a South Korean plaintiff, was emotional during a subsequent news conference, saying, ''Japan will never understand my sentiments, how frustrated I am for having lost my father.''

Kim said her father was forced into wartime service by the Japanese military in 1941 and died in combat on eastern New Guinea Island in 1943, but until now, the Japanese government has not made efforts to help her find her father's remains or go to New Guinea to pay tribute.

Shinichi Kaba, 51, a Buddhist monk and head of the plaintiffs' group, said, ''I deeply regret the ruling...Yasukuni Shrine is the opposite of the value of peace we are upholding, and affirms and glorifies violence and war.''

According to the suit filed with the Tokyo District Court in December 2001, the plaintiffs said the shrine visits by Koizumi and Ishihara were in violation of the Constitution's provision which guarantees religious freedom and the separation of religion and state.

But the central government argued that Koizumi's visits were not made in his official capacity and so were not unconstitutional, while the Tokyo metropolitan government said Ishihara's visits to the shrine are not a religious activity as they are for the purpose of paying tribute to the memory of the war dead.