Japan Press Weekly

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2013 July 31 - August 13 [WELFARE]

211 young lawyers in lawsuit claim abolition of scholarship program to be unconstitutional

Young lawyers on August 2 took a legal action against the state claiming that abolition of the scholarship program providing grants to legal trainees to cover living expenses during a one-year training period is unconstitutional.

The program was designed to provide a guarantee of livelihood during the training period to legal trainees, who are prohibited from having part-time jobs. Under the program, the state used to grant them a 200,000 yen monthly stipend. In November 2011, the government abolished the program and introduced a loan program instead.

Lawsuits were filed by 211 young lawyers, who completed their legal training after the introduction of the loan program, at district courts in Tokyo, Nagoya, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka.

They claimed that the scholarship program worked as a “compensatory system to ensure basic rights” and was established to meet the “requirement under the Japanese Constitution for ensuring living wages” of legal apprentices in order to allow them to focus on their legal training.

The plaintiffs also said that trainees under the loan program suffer an “irrational gap” in financial conditions between the trainees who received the state grant program and those who have to take the loan, which is an “infringement of equal rights”.

According to the plaintiffs, legal trainees who passed the national bar examination had already borrowed 3.4 million yen to cover various expenses, including fees for law schools. Since the scholarship program was replaced with the loan program, some gave up becoming lawyers and some suffered further financial difficulties during the training period, they pointed out.

Lawyer Hara Kazuyoshi, head of a counsel for plaintiffs in a Tokyo lawsuit, said, “20 years ago, thanks to the state grant, I could become a lawyer. The current situation in which people have to abandon their hope to become a lawyer because of financial conditions must be eliminated.”

From across Japan, 463 lawyers, including former Japan Federation of Bar Associations President Utsunomiya Kenji, expressed their support for the lawsuits.

Utsunomiya said, “This legal battle raises the question of what the system training legal professionals protecting people’s rights should be.”

Past related articles:
> Legal trainees call for reinstatement of scholarship program [Jan 31, 2013]
> Japan bar association in rally demands continuation of scholarship program for legal trainees [July 8, 2011]
> Scholarship program for legal apprentices continues another year [Nov 19, 2010]