In a landmark ruling, the government was ordered Friday to pay 1.82 billion yen in compensation to 127 former Hansen's disease patients who claimed their rights were violated because they were forced into isolation while being treated.
The Kumamoto District Court upheld the claim by the 127 plaintiffs that the state chose to maintain a prewar segregation policy in formulating the 1953 Leprosy Prevention Law, even though the disease is not highly contagious and a cure was developed in the 1940s.
Presiding Judge Masashi Sugiyama said the former Health and Welfare Ministry bore a grave responsibility for failing to alter its isolation policy at least by 1960, when drug therapy allowed sufferers to return to society.
The court also acknowledged that lawmakers were responsible for failing to carry out necessary legal revisions at an earlier date.