Court finds state and firm guilty of wartime forced labor

The Niigata District Court on March 26 ordered the state and a Japanese company to pay 88 million yen in compensation to twelve Chinese who had been taken from China and compelled to engage in forced labor at Niigata Port during World War II.

This is the first court ruling to hold the state responsible for the cases of forced labor.

The court held both the state and the Niigata-based harbor transport company Rinko Corp. responsible for jointly planning and undertaking the transportation and mobilization of Chinese workers. Ten former slave-laborers and two relatives of a deceased laborer were the plaintiffs.

During the war, 901 Chinese people were taken to Niigata port and 159 of them were killed under very harsh labor and living conditions.

The defendants maintained that the plaintiffs are not entitled to call for compensation because the 20-year statute of limitations on the case had passed. Presiding Judge Katano Noriyoshi dismissed this stating that the responsibility of the state and the firm for jointly committing the lawless action can not expire. Also, they should be questioned for having used violence daily against the Chinese and having failed to take minimum safety measures, the judge said.

The government argued that under the Meiji Constitution, in effect at the time, the state had no responsibility to pay compensation to individuals, even if they incurred inquires.

The court turned down another argument of the government that the Chinese side lost the legal basis to call for compensation as the result of the 1972 Japan-China joint statement.

Commenting on the ruling, Akahata on March 27 said that the sentence drove the state into a corner because it lost all its grounds in arguments in relevant law suits; it will greatly help relieving all victims of forced labor.

The state must not file an appeal but accept the ruling and pay compensation so that the controversial issue can be finally and fully resolved. (end)