Saburo Ienaga - First Lawsuit

First Lawsuit

On June 12, 1965, Ienaga filed the first suit against the government of Japan. He demanded 1,000,000 yen under State Redress Law (国家賠償法) for the psychological damage that he suffered through his experience that the government's allegedly unconstitutional system of school textbook authorization made him correct the contents of his draft textbook against his will and violated his right to freedom of expression. Ienaga claimed that the system of textbook authorization, which is based on Article 21 and 51 of School Education Law (学校教育法) among others, was unjust and unconstitutional because:

The authorization system was against Article 21 of the constitution that guarantees the freedom of speech and expression. Writing and publication of history textbook is a form of speech that is protected by the Constitution; however, the system of school textbook authorization as it was practiced in 1965 conducted thought control and prohibited publication and use of textbooks at schools that were deemed inappropriate according to a particular political ideology held by the government. According to Ienaga this falls under the category of censorship (検閲) that is prohibited by Section 2, Article 21 of the Constitution of Japan. Article 21 specifically prohibits censorship in an independent section because it is the principle of the democratic constitution of Japan that the people are guaranteed the opportunities to freely enjoy the results of scholastic researches, be exposed to all sorts of ideas and opinions, and know socio-political reality and historical truth through various media such as press, radio, and television.

The authorization system was against Article 10 of Fundamental Law of Education (教育基本法) that states that education shall not submit to unjust control. This is from reflection on the past that the pre-war education system of Japan attempted to control thought by standardizing and uniforming education. Therefore, the content of education ought to be left unstandardized and be free from uniformalization by the political authority, ienaga argued.

• First trial (filed by Ienaga on June 12, 1965, ruled on July 16, 1974, at Tokyo District Court): Judge Takatsu ruled that the textbook authorization system could not be deemed censorship as defined in the Article 21 of the Constitution because such a system should be allowed on the ground of public welfare, while ordering the state to compensate Ienaga 100,000 yen for a certain abuse of discretion.
• Second trial (filed by Ienaga on July 26, 1974, ruled on March 19, 1986, at Tokyo High Court): Judge Suzuki wholly adopted the claim of the state and denied any abuse of discretion in the authorization process.
• Third trial (filed by Ienaga on March 20, 1986, ruled on March 16, 1993, at Supreme Court): Judge Kabe followed the verdict of the second trial and rejected the appeal.