The Fukuoka District Court on Monday dismissed a 6.8 million yen damages suit against the Fukuoka Prefectural Government by a Chinese woman who claimed her arrest for not carrying her passport or alien registration card was illegal.
The woman, a resident of the city of Fukuoka who is in her 30s and married to a Japanese, claimed the law that requires foreigners to always carry their passports or alien registration cards violates human rights and her arrest and detention at a police station in the city was malicious.
Judge Tetsuro Tanaka noted in handing down the ruling that at the point at which the woman was found without her passport, there was no way of knowing who she was or why she did not have the documents on her person.
"It could not be acknowledged at the time that there was no clear need for arrest," the judge said.