The decision to pay compensation to the widow of a Finance Ministry employee who committed suicide amid a document falsification scandal shows the government's determination to avoid a serious investigation at any cost.

The government’s legal ploy to end the lawsuit filed by Masako Akagi is an appalling act of trampling on the dignity of an individual.

Toshio Akagi, Masako’s husband, took his own life after he was ordered to falsify official documents related to a 2016 sale of state-owned land to Moritomo Gakuen, an Osaka-based school operator, at a steep discount.

The trial ended without any questioning of witnesses because the government agreed to pay 107 million yen ($938,000) to Akagi, the full amount of compensation she sought in the lawsuit.

Akagi took the legal action not for the money but for discovering the truth behind her husband’s death.

However, the government’s “cognovit,” or an acknowledgment that the plaintiff's cause is just, has allowed judgment to be entered without an actual trial.

While Akagi’s suit against Nobuhisa Sagawa, then chief of the ministry's Finance Bureau in charge of managing state assets, is still ongoing, the government’s decision has sharply narrowed the legal path to the truth.

It is hardly surprising that Akagi felt deep anger and frustration at the action.

Commenting on the decision, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said the government had “decided it would not be appropriate to allow the lawsuit to drag on,” as if being concerned about the burden the trial would put on her mental and physical health.

This is an extremely lame explanation.

If the government is really remorseful for how the bureaucrat was pressured into suicide, it should disclose all the details about how it concluded that “the government is clearly accountable for the case.”

It should disclose the discussions made within the government and the facts that were uncovered. It should also make clear which of the assumptions underlying its traditional position at the court have changed to convince it to make the decision.

The compensation to be paid to the plaintiff will be financed by taxpayer money.

If certain individuals are liable for intentional acts or grave negligence, they should be required to pay the compensation. The government owes taxpayers a convincing explanation.

The Diet, the primary watchdog of the administrative branch, should fulfill its own responsibilities related to the case.

After the scandal came to light, the administrations of Shinzo Abe and his successor, Yoshihide Suga, handled it in a manner that bred distrust among the public.

Since the lawsuit was filed, the government has long resisted disclosing the so-called Akagi file.

When it was finally released in June, the file revealed emails sent by senior ministry officials instructing the bureaucrat to falsify data on the land transaction.

The government also blacked out most parts of a document for recognizing Toshio Akagi’s suicide as death due to work-related stress.

The document was disclosed last month only after an independent internal affairs ministry panel dealing with freedom of information cases called the government’s refusal to disclose the document illegal.

Even so, the finance minister shamelessly claimed that the government had been making sincere responses, submitting necessary materials to the court.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has the heavy responsibility to redress the flawed way in which the government has dealt with the case.

When asked again about how he intends to deal with the Moritomo Gakuen scandal at the Diet on Dec. 16, Kishida said he would fulfill his responsibility to explain.

But he is reluctant to start a fresh probe into the case. He has pointed out that the Finance Ministry conducted its own investigation and published a report three years ago.

But the government’s cognovit points to shortcomings in the ministry’s investigation.

Why was the state-owned land sold to Moritomo Gakuen at such a steep discount? Why did the falsification begin immediately after Abe denied his involvement in the sale? Many questions remain unanswered.

Kishida’s equivocal attitude is making what he calls “a crisis of democracy” even worse.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 17