The government on Wednesday appealed a landmark ruling last week that ordered it and a harbor transport company to jointly pay 88 million yen in compensation to Chinese who served as slave-laborers in Japan during World War II.
The government appealed to the Tokyo High Court against Friday's ruling by the Niigata District Court, which declared that the state's argument that laws at the time exempted it from compensation demands were inappropriate from the standpoint of justice and fairness.
It was the first time for a Japanese court to order the government to pay compensation for wartime slave labor.