Japan’s top court is set to deliver a ruling on Wednesday to alter the eugenics law by which the government forcibly sterilised approximately 16,500 people, causing decades of suffering for the victims.
The Supreme Court is hearing five appeal cases. The victims are seeking compensation and an apology after varied decisions from the lower courts. The court’s decision is scheduled to be announced at 3 pm local time (0600 GMT).
Japan’s government acknowledges that around 16,500 people were forcibly sterilised under a eugenics law in place between 1948 and 1996.
This law permitted doctors to sterilise people with inheritable intellectual disabilities to “prevent the generation of poor quality descendants”.
As per the authorities, another 8,500 people were sterilised with their ‘consent’ although lawyers argue that even those cases were likely “de facto forced” due to the pressure that individuals faced.
A 1953 government notice said physical restraint, anaesthesia, and even “deception” could be used for the operations.
“I’ve spent an agonising 66 years because of the government surgery. I want my life back that I was robbed of,” said Saburo Kita, who uses a pseudonym.
Kids were forced to undergo the surgery. Kita was one such kid who was convinced to undergo a vasectomy when he was 14 at a facility housing troubled children.
He couldn’t bring himself to tell his wife when he was married years later, only confiding in her shortly before she died in 2013.
“Only when the government faces up to what it did and takes responsibility will I be able to accept my life, even just a little,” Kita, now 81, told a news conference last year.
Apology
The number of operations slowed down in the 1980s and 1990s before the law was finally scrapped in 1996.
The dark history was brought under the spotlight in 2018 after a woman in her 60s sued the government for a procedure she had undergone at the age of 15, giving the deserved attention to similar lawsuits.
The government has taken full accountability for its action and “wholeheartedly” apologised after legislation was passed in 2019 stipulating a lump-sum payment of 3.2 million yen (around $20,000 today) per victim.
However, as per the survivors, the amount is too little compared to their lifelong suffering, and have taken their fight to court.
Apart from Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling, several other cases are at different stages in lower courts.
Regional courts have all agreed that the eugenics law was a violation of Japan’s constitution.
However, judges have been divided on whether claims are valid beyond a 20-year statute of limitations.
Some have said that applying such limitations is extremely cruel and unfair, ordering the state to pay damages. But others have dismissed cases, saying the window for pursuing damages had closed.
“If the Supreme Court decides that the statute of limitations isn’t applicable at all, then basically all plaintiffs in subsequent cases, and victims who haven’t sued yet or aren’t even aware of the damage they had suffered, can benefit,” Kita’s lawyer, Naoto Sekiya, told AFP.
Critics say the eugenics law laid the foundation for discriminatory attitudes against people with disabilities that linger still.
“The ruling will hopefully pave the way for active steps to be taken by the government to eliminate the kind of eugenic mentality that it created,” Sekiya said.
The Supreme Court is hearing five appeal cases. The victims are seeking compensation and an apology after varied decisions from the lower courts. The court’s decision is scheduled to be announced at 3 pm local time (0600 GMT).
Japan’s government acknowledges that around 16,500 people were forcibly sterilised under a eugenics law in place between 1948 and 1996.
This law permitted doctors to sterilise people with inheritable intellectual disabilities to “prevent the generation of poor quality descendants”.
As per the authorities, another 8,500 people were sterilised with their ‘consent’ although lawyers argue that even those cases were likely “de facto forced” due to the pressure that individuals faced.
A 1953 government notice said physical restraint, anaesthesia, and even “deception” could be used for the operations.
“I’ve spent an agonising 66 years because of the government surgery. I want my life back that I was robbed of,” said Saburo Kita, who uses a pseudonym.
Kids were forced to undergo the surgery. Kita was one such kid who was convinced to undergo a vasectomy when he was 14 at a facility housing troubled children.
He couldn’t bring himself to tell his wife when he was married years later, only confiding in her shortly before she died in 2013.
“Only when the government faces up to what it did and takes responsibility will I be able to accept my life, even just a little,” Kita, now 81, told a news conference last year.
Apology
The number of operations slowed down in the 1980s and 1990s before the law was finally scrapped in 1996.
The dark history was brought under the spotlight in 2018 after a woman in her 60s sued the government for a procedure she had undergone at the age of 15, giving the deserved attention to similar lawsuits.
The government has taken full accountability for its action and “wholeheartedly” apologised after legislation was passed in 2019 stipulating a lump-sum payment of 3.2 million yen (around $20,000 today) per victim.
However, as per the survivors, the amount is too little compared to their lifelong suffering, and have taken their fight to court.
Apart from Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling, several other cases are at different stages in lower courts.
Regional courts have all agreed that the eugenics law was a violation of Japan’s constitution.
However, judges have been divided on whether claims are valid beyond a 20-year statute of limitations.
Some have said that applying such limitations is extremely cruel and unfair, ordering the state to pay damages. But others have dismissed cases, saying the window for pursuing damages had closed.
“If the Supreme Court decides that the statute of limitations isn’t applicable at all, then basically all plaintiffs in subsequent cases, and victims who haven’t sued yet or aren’t even aware of the damage they had suffered, can benefit,” Kita’s lawyer, Naoto Sekiya, told AFP.
Critics say the eugenics law laid the foundation for discriminatory attitudes against people with disabilities that linger still.
“The ruling will hopefully pave the way for active steps to be taken by the government to eliminate the kind of eugenic mentality that it created,” Sekiya said.
