Asia-Pacific

Japan's top court throws out war shrine appeals

(AP)
Updated: 2006-06-27 16:30
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Japan's top court on Tuesday threw out two appeals challenging the constitutionality of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a Tokyo war shrine, officials said.

Japan's top court throws out war shrine appeals
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi waves as he boards his special flight for Canada and the U.S. at Tokyo's Haneda airport June 27, 2006. [Reuters]

The Supreme Court will not rule on the suits, filed between 2001 and 2003 by relatives of Japan's war dead and religious leaders, according to court spokesman Katsunori Fujioka. The decision is final, Fujioka said, refusing to elaborate on the reasons for the decision.

The plaintiffs claimed Koizumi's visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine violated the constitutional separation of religion and state. Yasukuni honors Japan's war dead, including executed war criminals.

The plaintiffs also alleged that his visit has given them emotional distress, and demanded compensation.

Both the Takamatsu and Tokyo high courts skirted the constitutionality issue altogether in rulings last year, saying Koizumi's visit did not compromise the freedoms of the plaintiffs, so they were not entitled to claim damages.

Koizumi's five trips to Yasukuni since taking office have outraged domestic critics who oppose the shrine, which honors Japan's 2.5 million war dead, including men executed for war crimes committed in the 1930s and '40s.

China and South Korea, who suffered under Japanese invasion and domination in the first half of the 20th century, have also denounced Koizumi's visits. Beijing and Seoul consider the shrine and Koizumi's visits there a glorification of Japanese imperialism.

The lawsuits are among several that have been filed in recent years. Courts have for the most part rejected demands for compensation and left the constitutionality issue aside.

In two exceptions, the Osaka High Court in October 2005 and the Fukuoka District Court in April 2004 ruled in separate suits that the visits were unconstitutional.

Koizumi says the visits are made in a private capacity to pray for peace and denies that he supports a return to militarism. He has also dismissed foreign calls to stop the visits as an interference in Japan's internal affairs.

The prime minister last went to the Yasukuni shrine in October 2005, and there is speculation that he could visit it before the end of his term in September.