After witnessing guards at Nagoya Prison frequently bullying inmates -- particularly the elderly or physically disabled -- a male prisoner sent a written complaint in October 2000 to then Justice Minister Okiharu Yasuoka.

More than a year later, the 37-year-old man, who would only identify himself as Honda, received a letter in the name of current Justice Minister Mayumi Moriyama, dismissing his petition as groundless.

Moriyama, however, admitted recently that she neither read the petition nor even knew that such a procedure existed.