The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected charges by seven residents of Minoo, Osaka Prefecture, that municipal subsidies paid in fiscal 1976 to a local organization of relatives of the war dead violated the separation of church and state as stipulated in the Constitution.
The First Petty Bench of the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling and rejected the demand by the plaintiffs that then Mayor Buhei Nakai return roughly 450,000 yen -- provided through municipal social welfare programs -- to city coffers.
The main focus of the trial was whether the court would recognize associations of relatives of the war dead as being religious organizations because they follow Shintoism.