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JCP urges government to swiftly improve A-bomb disease certification standards

Koike Akira who heads the Japanese Communist Party Committee on the Hibakusha Question on May 12 published the following comment on the Osaka District Court judgment in a collective lawsuit calling for the plaintiffs' illness to be caused by atomic bombing:

The Osaka District Court on May 12 handed down the first judgment in a series of collective lawsuits filed by atomic bomb survivors calling for recognition that their illnesses were caused by atomic bomb radiation. The court ruled that the state rejection of recognition of all 9 plaintiffs is unjust.

In similar lawsuits in the past over recognition of A-bomb victims' illnesses and disorders as caused by radiation, it has repeatedly been pointed out by courts that the government standards of recognition are impractical. Nevertheless, the government has kept on shutting the door to the state recognition of A-bomb diseases by setting new and stricter standards for recognition.

The Osaka District Court ruling pointed out the limitations of the new standards and warned against mechanically applying them, and also called for comprehensive consideration by taking into account the effects of internal radiation and the health conditions of hibakusha. It is particularly important for the future administration of A-bomb disease certification that the court said that the effects of radiation from the A-bombs cannot be denied in the cases of hibakusha who were radiated when they entered an A-bombed city and who were radiated at a further distance from ground zero.

It is unpardonable for the government, after 60 years since the A-bombings, to continue to allow the present circumstances to persist and force Hibakusha in their old age to carry on their court struggles. The JCP demands that the government take this ruling seriously and drastically revise the standards for recognition.
- Akahata, May 13, 2006