Photo/Illutration Yuri Kondo speaks at a news conference after the Fukuoka District Court ruled against her lawsuit on dual nationality on Dec. 6. (Naoki Nakayama)

FUKUOKA—The Fukuoka District Court on Dec. 6 ruled that a law that deprives people of their Japanese nationality if they obtain foreign citizenship is constitutional.

The lawsuit was filed by Yuri Kondo, 76, an Arizona attorney seeking dual nationality.

Kondo was a Japanese national from Fukuoka Prefecture who became a U.S. citizen in 2004.

In 2017, she was denied a Japanese passport on grounds that she was no longer a Japanese citizen.

Paragraph 1 of Article 11 in the Nationality Law stipulates that “a Japanese citizen loses his or her Japanese nationality if he or she acquires a foreign nationality at his or her own volition.”

Kondo argued in the lawsuit that the provision that automatically scraps Japanese nationality upon acquiring foreign citizenship is unconstitutional.

But the court dismissed her arguments.

“The law gives an opportunity to choose between Japanese nationality and foreign nationality when acquiring foreign citizenship,” the court said.

It ruled that the purpose and means of the law are reasonable and do not violate the Constitution’s Article 13, which guarantees the right to self-determination, and other provisions.

Kondo expressed frustration at a news conference after the ruling.

“The law does not even say when and how one loses Japanese nationality,” she said. “In reality, there are people who suffer from a loss of their nationality without knowing the system and without being given the opportunity to make a choice.

“Can you just cut off these people ‘because it’s written in the law’?”

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