THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
October 8, 2021 at 15:20 JST
Riot police remove a protester from a road leading to a construction site for U.S. military helipads in Higashi, northern Okinawa Prefecture, in July 2016. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
NAGOYA--The Nagoya High Court ordered a former prefectural police chief to pay about 1.1 million yen ($9,846) to the prefecture for “illegally” deploying riot police to Okinawa Prefecture to quell anti-U.S. military protests.
The court’s ruling on Oct. 7 said Aichi Governor Hideaki Omura must ensure that the former police chief pays the sum to the prefectural government.
Presiding Judge Shinya Kurata, overturning a Nagoya District Court ruling, said the dispatch was illegal because the police chief had failed to gain prior approval from the prefecture’s Public Safety Commission to deploy the officers.
Police administrative rules require advance approval from the commission for deployments that are politically and socially divisive and could have significant ramifications, the judge said.
The police chief reported the deployment to the commission after the mission had been carried out.
Kurata said after-the-fact reporting was not equal to having obtained prior approval or confirmation through full evaluations by the commission.
After the high court decision, a prefectural police representative said, “We will examine the court documents and decide our response.”
About 200 residents in Aichi Prefecture joined the lawsuit against the prefectural police department.
The Aichi riot police were sent to Higashi, a village in northern Okinawa Prefecture, between July and December 2016. Demonstrations were being held there to protest construction of helipads for the U.S. military.
The riot police removed vehicles and tents used by the protesters in the rallies.
Aichi Prefecture is one of several prefectures that sent riot police to the scene.
The plaintiffs asserted that the deployment was illegal and ran counter to the purpose of police to serve the local government.
They demanded that prefectural police return 130 million yen in officers’ pay and other expenses to the prefectural government’s coffers.
The Nagoya District Court in March 2020 ruled that the deployment was not illegal, citing the commission’s approval given after the dispatch.
The court, however, acknowledged that the police chief’s act may have violated administrative rules.
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