Japan Press Weekly

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2019 December 18 - 24 [POLITICS]

Appeals court rules non-disclosure of discount given on land sale to 'Moritomo' as illegal

The appeals court in Osaka on December 17 ruled that non-disclosure of information regarding the reasoning behind the give-away price of national land as well as behind giving school corporation "Moritomo Gakuen" a huge discount is illegal.

In the first trial at the Osaka District Court, the national government's non-disclosure of the sales price was ruled as illegal. The non-disclosure of grounds for the price reduction was ruled as legal.

However, the Osaka High Court overruled the lower court judgement and acknowledged that official documents related to "the waste buried underground", which was said-to-be the grounds for an 800-million-yen discount off the price, are equally "as important as the extremely low sales price" and the release of such documents, therefore, is legitimate.

The Finance Ministry's local financial bureau sold off state-owned land in Osaka's Toyonaka City to Moritomo Gakuen at the price of 134 million yen which subtracted "the waste clean-up costs" from the appraised value of 956 million yen.

However, no waste existed under the ground, according to the testimony of many experts. Also, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's wife, Akie, was suspected of being deeply involved in the bargain sale of national land. These points were frequently taken up in Diet interrogations.

Past related articles:
> Gov't wants to end Moritomo scandal with overseas transfer of core officials involved in the scandal [August 19, 2019]
> Onus of proof over school scandals lies with gov't: JCP Miyamoto [April 12, 2018]
> Ex-Moritomo president: PM’s wife knew how the land deal was progressing [March 24, 2018]
> Finance Ministry confirms voice data regarding huge discount scenario of land deal for Moritomo [November 29, 2017]
> Board of Audit: Finance Ministry’s 90% discount on land deal for Moritomo inappropriate [ November 22, 2017]
> Far-right wing school corporation collects donations under name of ‘Abe Shinzo’ [February 17, 2017]
> Abe’s wife-associated school corporation gets national land at exceptionally low price [February 11, 2017]