Photo/Illutration The Supreme Court building (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The Supreme Court, in its first ruling on hate speech ordinances being enacted by local governments, declared Feb. 15 that the one in Osaka city was constitutional.

The focus of the case was whether hate speech ordinances infringed on the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression.

In a unanimous decision, the Third Petty Bench said the Osaka city ordinance’s restrictions on freedom of speech were within the bounds of the Constitution because it was “only limited to extremely and maliciously discriminatory words and deeds.”

The ordinance includes a provision to disclose the name of individuals or groups found to have violated the edict.

Osaka city in 2016 became the first local government to enact a hate speech ordinance.

The Osaka municipal government determined that a video posted to the internet of a gathering at which speakers called for ethnic Koreans to be “killed” and “driven out of Japan” was in violation of the hate speech ordinance.

However, the municipal government was only able to identify and disclose the handle of the individual who posted the video.

Eight local residents filed a lawsuit on grounds the ordinance constituted an erosion of freedom of expression. They also asserted that the use of public funds in implementing the ordinance was illegal.

But the Supreme Court said the ordinance had taken into consideration the need to guarantee freedom of expression by asking a panel of experts its opinion on what constitutes hate speech before the name of the violator was disclosed.

The court also said the objective of the ordinance was rational and “unavoidable in order to achieve public welfare.”

The court upheld similar rulings by the Osaka district and high courts that said the hate speech ordinance was constitutional.

The Osaka municipal government has so far disclosed the names of 11 individuals or groups under the ordinance.

At least eight other local governments have followed Osaka in enacting hate speech ordinances, and others are considering similar steps.

A major incentive was the passage in May 2016 of an anti-hate speech law. Because the law was philosophical in nature and did not include specific restrictions or penalties, it was left to local governments to pass ordinances to clamp down on hate speech in their jurisdictions.

Tokyo passed an ordinance in 2018 that defined what constituted hate speech and included a provision to restrict the use of public facilities by any group found to have engaged in hate speech activity in the past.

The following year, Tokyo’s neighboring Kawasaki city, which has a sizable ethnic Korean community, became the first local government to include penalties against violators.

Choi Kang-ija, 48, a third-generation ethnic Korean who lives in Kawasaki, called the Supreme Court ruling “encouraging,” saying it sent a strong signal to other local governments.

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