The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday rejected a ¥30 million damages suit filed by a 77-year-old man who was sterilized against his will in 1957 under the now-defunct eugenics protection law.
The court did not rule on whether the obsolete law that mandated the government to stop people with intellectual disabilities from reproducing was unconstitutional, a focal point in this case.
But presiding Judge Masaharu Ito said in the ruling that the sterilization surgery "infringed upon freedom ensured by the Constitution."