The Niigata District Court on Thursday ordered the state to pay a combined 14 million yen to two disabled men who were denied disability benefits because they had not joined the national pension program as students.
Presiding Judge Shinji Inukai ruled in favor of Naoki Tondokoro, 41, and Masataka Abe, 37, both from Niigata Prefecture, saying the government had violated the constitutional guarantee of equality under law.
"It was an extremely irrational and discriminatory act" on the part of the government not to make it mandatory for students aged 20 or older to join the pension program in the 1985 revision of the pension law, thereby leaving room for students in this bracket to face disadvantages.