Japan Press Weekly

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2014 April 23 - May 6 TOP3 [POLITICS]

Supreme Court ruling cannot justify the use of collective self-defense right: ex-judge

The Abe administration often cites a Supreme Court ruling in 1959 in order to justify the state’s exercise of the right to collective self-defense. Persons involved in the lawsuit, however, criticize the government’s claim as completely unreasonable.

In July 1957, opposing a project to expand the U.S. military base in Tokyo’s Sunagawa Town (the current Tachikawa City), some protesters, including local union members and university students, crossed the fence and stepped several meters onto the base site. They were prosecuted for violating the Special Criminal Law associated with the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.

In March 1959, the Tokyo District Court found the defendants not guilty, stating, “The U.S. Forces are not allowed to stay in Japan in light of the war-renouncing Japanese Constitution.” This decision is known as “the Date ruling”, after the then presiding judge, Date Akio.

Shocked by the judgment, Japan’s national government bypassed a high court and directly appealed to the Supreme Court. In December of that year, the top court reversed the original verdict, saying, “The Constitution does not ban the state from taking necessary measures to secure its peace, security, and existence.” This pronouncement is often mentioned by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.

Lawyer Naito Isao (former Japanese Communist Party member of the Upper House), who pleaded for the defendants in the trials, argues that the point at issue was about the right to individual self-defense, not collective self-defense. “At that time, it was only several years after Japan’s Self-Defense Forces were established. Nobody was thinking of ‘going abroad to defend other countries’,” he said.

Dokkyo University Professor Emeritus Matsumoto Ichiro is one of the judges who worked out the lower court decision with Date. “Neither the district court nor the Supreme Court even took into consideration the collective self-defense right. It’s outrageous for the government to use the top court decision as the basis for authorizing the exercise of the right to collective self-defense,” he stressed.

Niihara Shoji, an analyst of international affairs, using declassified U.S. diplomatic documents, revealed in April 2008 the fact that U.S. Ambassador to Japan Douglas MacArthur II and Chief Justice of Japan’s Supreme Court Tanaka Koichiro had confidential talks shortly after the district court decision and worked together to overturn the epoch-making ruling. “The top court judgment cannot be justified considering its background. It can rationalize nothing,” he said.

Past related article:
> Limited use of right to collective self-defense will lead to unlimited use [April 10, 2014]