Attorneys representing 127 former leprosy patients presented closing arguments Friday at the Kumamoto District Court in damages suits alleging that prolonged isolation of the patients in special centers violated their human rights.
Mitsuhide Yahiro, one of the attorneys, said: "Our country adopted the isolation policy due to a misunderstanding about the disease. Countless patients asked for help, but ended up in despair."
The former patients, who filed suits against the central government on four separate occasions starting in July 1998, are each seeking 115 million yen in compensation for their forced isolation under the 1953 Leprosy Prevention Law, which was abolished in April 1996.
The law required patients with the infection to be isolated for treatment even though medication to cure the disease was developed in 1941. Enforced isolation of leprosy -- or Hansen's disease -- patients began in Japan in 1907 under separate legislation. The suit claims the government was responsible for enacting the 1956 law and for subsequently failing to take steps to rescind the isolation policy and return leprosy patients to society.
The government has rejected the plaintiffs' claims, saying isolating patients with the infection was believed to be valid at the time the law was enacted.
Lawyers for the government are scheduled to present their closing arguments Jan. 12, with the court expected to issue a ruling sometime in spring at the earliest.
The plaintiffs, who were forced to enter isolation facilities from the 1940s until the 1960s, had limited freedom to leave. Many were sterilized or forced to have abortions, according to the suit. Similar suits are under way in Tokyo and Okayama Prefecture. Including the Kumamoto plaintiffs, there are 591 in total.
About 4,600 former patients still live in 15 leprosy facilities nationwide.