The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit by Koreans who sought disability pensions for wounds suffered during World War II, when they were forced to serve with the Imperial Japanese forces.
The Koreans' claim was rejected by two lower courts on the grounds that they no longer held Japanese citizenship, even though they had been conscripted as Japanese citizens from the Korean Peninsula during Japan's colonial rule.
The plaintiffs, Sok Song Gi, 79, a resident of Yokohama, and the family of Chin Sok Il, who died in 1994 while the suit was in progress, appealed to the Supreme Court, demanding that the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry cancel its decision not to pay them the pension.