The Lower House unanimously adopted a resolution Thursday offering an apology to former Hansen's disease patients for the failure by Diet members to promptly annul legislation that segregated them from society.

The resolution came after a May 11 Kumamoto District Court ruling that the Diet and the government were responsible for the prolonged suffering of Hansen's disease patients because they failed to repeal the 1953 Leprosy Prevention Law until 1996.

Patients were forced into sanitariums, given limited freedom, were subject to sterilization and in many cases were forced to have abortions.