The Naha District Court rejected a lawsuit Friday over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Tokyo's contentious Yasukuni Shrine.
The suit was filed in September 2002 by a group of 94 Okinawa residents who said Koizumi's visits to the Shinto shrine in August 2001 and April 2002 flouted the constitutional division between state and religion. The shrine honors Japan's war dead as well as convicted war criminals.
But the court avoided touching on the constitutionality of Koizumi's visits, with presiding Judge Kazuto Nishii saying, "There is no need to judge the responsibility of the defendants because there was no infringement of the plaintiffs' legal rights or interests."