Saburo Ienaga - Second Lawsuit

Second Lawsuit

Ienaga filed an administrative lawsuit to demand the Ministry of Education to reverse the rejection of his New Japanese History at the textbook authorization in 1966.

• First trial (filed by Ienaga on June 12, 1965, ruled on July 16, 1974, at Tokyo District Court): Judge Sugimoto ruled that authorization that affects the content of the description of textbooks is against Article 10 of Fundamental Law of Education, and that the authorization falls under the category of censorship as defined in Section 2, Article 21 of the Constitution, and demanded the state to reverse its decision.
• Second trial (filed by the state on July 24, 1970, ruled on December 20, 1975, at Tokyo High Court): Judge Azakami rejected the appeal by the state on the ground that the decision of the authorization lacks consistency.
• Third trial (filed by the state on December 30, 1975, ruled on April 8, 1982, at Supreme Court): The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the appeal to high court as the curriculum guideline has already been revised since the time of the first lawsuit and as the result there is no longer any merit in requesting reversal of Ministry's decision.
• Fourth trial (ruled on June 27, 1989, at Tokyo High Court): The judge rejected the ruling of the first trial since the plaintiff has already lost interest in requesting the reversal of the rejection of his textbook.