Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Chikara Sakaguchi signed a final agreement with former Hansen's disease patients and relatives of deceased sufferers Monday to settle a damages suit over the government's past quarantine policy.

The out-of-court settlement calls on the government to pay up to 7 million yen in compensation to each of the 16 former patients and a maximum 14 million yen to each of the families of 72 deceased patients.

The settlement is expected to be officially reached at the Kumamoto District Court on Wednesday following Monday's signing of the agreement. It was signed at a ceremony at the ministry at which Sakaguchi and Kazumi Sogano, 74, representing the plaintiffs, shook hands.

The agreement is in line with a settlement recommendation made by the Kumamoto District Court in December. It also includes an apology in which the government admitted its legal responsibility.

Unlike most other Hansen's patients in Japan, the plaintiffs were not forced into sanitariums under the 1953 Leprosy Prevention Law, which was repealed in 1996. But they claim to have suffered social discrimination under the government policy and said it ruined their lives.

The suit was initially filed with the Kumamoto District Court in July 1998 by 13 Hansen's patients at sanitariums in Kumamoto and Kagoshima prefectures.

In a landmark ruling on May 11, the district court ordered the government to pay a combined 1.8 billion yen in compensation to 127 Hansen's disease patients who were forcibly institutionalized. The government did not appeal.

About 2,100 plaintiffs and the government later reached a settlement in similar suits, and a law was enacted in June to pay between 8 million yen and 14 million yen each in compensation to ex-Hansen's patients forced into sanitariums.

However, patients who were not sent to the facilities and those who died before the initial suit was lodged were not covered by the law.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs told a news conference after the ceremony that despite settlement of all lawsuits filed over the isolation policy, ex-Hansen's disease patients still face problems, including discrimination.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a regular news conference Monday, "The government is very pleased with the settlement, which fulfilled the patients' longtime wishes and thus is satisfactory. It is extremely important that Japanese society warmly welcome (the former patients)."