May 31, 2008

In a landmark ruling on May 30, the Osaka High Court upheld a lower court decision that ruled that it was illegal for the state to refuse to recognize nine atomic bomb survivors as suffering from illnesses caused by exposure to radiation from the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

The nine A-bomb survivors (Hibakusha), who now live in Kyoto, Osaka and Hyogo, have asked the high court to order the state to revoke its rejection of their recognition application and to pay compensation.

Three out of the nine plaintiffs have died since the lawsuit was initiated.

The Osaka High Court recognized that all the plaintiffs have illnesses caused by exposure to radiation from atomic bombs, turning down the state’s appeal against the lower court decision.

The ruling also included illnesses that are not in the amended government list of atomic bomb diseases that came into effect last April.

The presiding judge, Igaki Toshio, said that the health ministry’s system used to assess the dosages of radiation should not be applied mechanically to determine whether applications for the Hibakusha disease recognition are acceptable.

The reason the judge gave for the ruling was that the ministry’s system underestimates exposure to residual radiation for Hibakusha who entered Hiroshima or Nagasaki immediately after the atomic bombing or who were exposed to radiation at a greater distance from ground zero.

He said that in examining applications for Hibakusha disease recognition, the government should have taken into account the circumstances in which a Hibakusha was exposed to radiation, the Hibakusha’s living conditions after exposure to radiation from the atomic bombing, and the way the Hibakusha’s diseases developed.