Photo/Illutration Takehiko Nishimura, left, and Kikuo Kojima meet with reporters on May 29 after the conclusion of the Supreme Court session. (Minako Yoshimoto)

Kikuo Kojima was only 19 when he was sterilized without his consent decades ago under the old eugenics law.

Today, the 83-year-old, who is a plaintiff in lawsuits against the government, thinks about the life he could have had if he and his wife had children.

“I should have been the one to decide whether I would be happy or not,” Kojima told the Supreme Court on May 29. “I wanted to decide what kind of life I would lead. I am so frustrated that I was unable to do so.”

The justices heard from Kojima and other plaintiffs about the lives that were taken away from them under the former Eugenic Protection Law, which existed from 1948 to 1996. 

All 15 members of the Supreme Court sat through about three hours of testimony offered by plaintiffs in five lawsuits in which rulings have been handed down by four high courts.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs urged the justices to see and hear for themselves what the plaintiffs endured.

Under the eugenics law, authorities could order the sterilization of people with intellectual disabilities, mental illness or hereditary disorders. The purpose of the law was to prevent births of “inferior” offspring.

Two plaintiffs in the lawsuit in which the Osaka High Court handed down a landmark ruling ordering the central government to pay compensation have hearing disabilities and they signed in the Supreme Court about what they went through.

Using the pseudonyms of Taro and Hanako Nomura, the couple explained how they married in 1970 and Hanako became pregnant. She was sterilized without her consent when she gave birth through a Caesarean section. The baby died soon thereafter.

They signed that the central government had to take responsibility for what occurred.

A plaintiff in the lawsuit heard by the Tokyo High Court used the pseudonym of Saburo Kita, 81.

“I carried a secret because of the surgery and my life was greatly thrown off course,” he said. “I have suffered for 67 years.”

The man was sterilized without his knowledge when he was 14, but he never told his wife until just before she died.

A woman in her 70s who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit heard before the Sendai High Court told the Supreme Court, “I filed the lawsuit because I didn’t want the damage caused to be buried, but the government has only repeatedly said that it will not apologize or investigate.”

The last person to speak on behalf of the plaintiffs was Koji Niisato, the co-head of a national group of lawyers handling the various lawsuits.

“We ask the court as the bastion of human rights to correct those acts by the government that violated the Constitution,” he said. “We are hoping that the Supreme Court will hand down a ruling that is truly just and fair.”

The two major points of contention is whether the old law was unconstitutional and whether a statute of limitations of 20 years applied in denying the plaintiffs compensation.

All five high courts have ruled the old law as unconstitutional, but there was a difference of opinion over the statute of limitations, with the Sendai High Court denying compensation on grounds of the statute of limitations.

The other high courts ordered the government to pay compensation.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the statute of limitations provision so that a unified precedent can be set.

A ruling is expected sometime this summer.

A report compiled by the central government said that about 25,000 people were sterilized under the law, including about 16,500 who were operated on without their consent.

(This article was written by Takashi Endo and Yuto Yoneda.)

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