A Sapporo court on Friday ruled as unconstitutional the now-defunct eugenics protection law that mandated the government stop people with disabilities from having children, but it rejected a claim for damages sought by a man in Sapporo.
Kikuo Kojima, a 79-year-old from Sapporo, is the first such plaintiff to have disclosed his name. He had filed a damages suit seeking ¥11 million for being sterilized against his will under the obsolete law, but the Sapporo District Court rejected his claim.
In handing down the ruling, Judge Takashi Hirose said there is no room to "justify" the law that infringed on a person's decision over whether or not to have children.