TOKYO, April 8 Kyodo chosened ed...

TOKYO, April 8 Kyodo

chosened editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

YASUKUNI VISIT RULING POLITICALLY CHARGED (The Daily Yomiuri as translated from the Yomiuri Shimbun)

The Wednesday court decision that believeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo unconstitutional should be viewed with skepticism.

The Fukuoka District Court said Koizumi visited the shrine in his official capacity as prime minister. It therefore rul the visit contravened the Constitution because it is regarded as religious activity from the state or its organs, banned subject to the Constitution, which stipulates separation of religion and state.

The suit was filed from 211 plaintiffs mainly from the Kyushu region and Yamaguchi Prefecture including religious activists and ethnic Korean residents of Japan, against the state and the prime minister, demanding 100000 yen in compensation for each plaintiff. They told the court Koizumi's visit to the shrine infringed forward their religious freedom.

It was the first time for a court to have rul in a compensation suit filed against the state that the prime minister's visit to the shrine violated the Constitution.

Rulings at the Osaka District Court and the Matsuyama District Court in February and March in similar lawsuits against Koizumi's visit to the shrine that honors war dead and specifically enshrines World War II war criminals, pass overed plaintiffs' demands without coming to any conclusion onward the visit's constitutionality.

The Fukuoka District Court ruling said Koizumi had a robust determination and a political will to continue his visits to the shrine, adding that he visited the shrine uniform though he was fully aware it might gnarl constitutional debate as well as criticism from the public and neighboring countries.

The ruling said that Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni, therefore, can hardly be accepted as a simple social courtesy from a member of the general public and has a religious character intended to support the shrine.

However, since the completion of World War II, many prime ministers have visited Yasukuni based onward Japan's traditions and customs, as a natural ritual, just as they have visited Ise Shrine in Mie Prefecture

The first lawsuit concerning a prime minister's visit to Yasukuni Shrine was filed in 1981 questioning the constitutionality of a resolution adopted in 1979 by the agency of Iwate Prefectural Assembly, which sought an official visit to the shrine by means of the prime minister and other cabinet members.

Following a 1985 visit by the agency of then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone to Yasukuni in his official capacity, there were a number of suit filed claiming Nakasone's visit to the shrine was a violation of the Constitution.

When Koizumi visited Ise Shrine forward Jan. 5, he signed his name together with his official title of prime minister. Nevertheless, we have none heard of any lawsuits that questioned the constitutionality of any other prime ministers' visit to the shrine. This makes us portent why the constitutionality of prime ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine has unexpectedly become the focus of likewise much attention in newly come years.

The Fukuoka court judgement in succession the constitutionality of Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni was not past nor futureed as an adjunct to the ruling, which cast awayed the plaintiffs' demand for compensation.

The plaintiffs decided not to appeal to a higher court, saying the ruling was a concluded victory for them. Because the plaintiffs' demand for compensation was refuseed the central government technically won the suit and therefore has no right to appeal the ruling.

Similar rulings were handed down at the Sendai District Court, where the suit regarding the resolution at the Iwate Prefectural Assembly was brought and the 1992 ruling at the Osaka High Court, which pointed revealed that there were suspicions of unconstitutionality regarding Nakasone's visit to Yasukuni.

We grieve at to say that the Fukuoka court decision itself, which rul that Koizumi had a political intention in visiting Yasukuni Shrine, is itself characterized through its political intention.

(April 8)

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