THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
February 6, 2025 at 17:33 JST
Masako Akagi, with a photo of her late husband, Toshio, speaks to reporters outside the Osaka High Court on Jan. 30. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
The government will not appeal a high court ruling that deemed its decision not to disclose public records on sale of state-owned land at a steep discount as illegal.
Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato and Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki explained the decision to reporters at the prime minister’s office on Feb. 6 after meeting with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
The government will determine whether to disclose the documents on the Finance Ministry’s sale of land in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, to Moritomo Gakuen, a private educational institution, in 2016.
Toshio Akagi, who worked at the ministry’s Kinki Local Finance Bureau, committed suicide after he was forced to falsify administrative documents related to the land sale.
Among other falsifications, the names of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife, Akie, were deleted from documents.
Akie temporarily served as honorary principal of an elementary school that Moritomo Gakuen planned to open on the site in Toyonaka.
When Akagi’s widow, Masako, sought disclosure of the documents through a freedom-of-information request in 2021, the ministry refused to release them without even discussing whether they exist.
The Osaka High Court on Jan. 30 overturned an Osaka District Court ruling on the lawsuit filed by Masako and canceled the ministry’s nondisclosure decision.
Kato told reporters that Ishiba said the government must “seriously” accept the ruling, considering the fact that someone who devoted himself to public service died.
The minister said Ishiba instructed him to carefully consider whether to disclose the documents in compliance with laws and regulations and in terms of accountability to the public.
The high court ruling said the government’s decision not to disclose the documents without even discussing whether they exist is illegal.
But it did not go so far as to order the government to disclose the documents.
The government may admit that the documents exist but still refuse to release them.
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