April 15, 2015

The Fukui District Court on April 14 ordered the Kansai Electric Power Company to not restart two reactors at the Takahama Nuclear Power Plant in Fukui Prefecture.

This court decision was made in response to a petition for a provisional injunction filed by nine people living within a 250-km radius from the plant.

The presiding judge in the court decision criticized the Nuclear Regulation Authority’s new safety standards as lax and unreasonable and said that the safety of the nuclear power plant will not be guaranteed even if it meets the standards.

The Takahama plant cannot resume its operation unless the court decision is overturned.

Japanese Communist Party Vice Chair Koike Akira on the same day satetd that the court order is epoch-making. He said that this is the first-ever court decision which in effect suspends the firing up of reactors.

Koike pointed out that although the government repeatedly asserted that the new NRA standards are “one of the best standards in the world”, the court found the standards to be sloppy and unreasonable. He stressed that with this court decision, the government will lose rationale and justification to go ahead with its plan to restart nuclear reactors that comply with the new safety standards.

Noting that the same reasoning behind the court decision applies to all reactors in Japan, Koike urged the government and utilities to give up reactivating all nuclear power stations, including Takahama. He added that the JCP will do its utmost to achieve a Japan free from nuclear power.