The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday ordered the Unification Church, heavily criticized for its coercive tactics in soliciting donations, to be stripped of its religious corporation status that exempts it from taxes.
The legal procedure triggered by the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came to an end after 1½ years of closed-door hearings.
The court order is expected to damage the credibility of the religious group, which is formally known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, and affect it financially as it needs to dispose of its assets and won’t be exempt from taxes. It will, however, be allowed to continue its activities.
Following the ruling, the church expressed its disappointment on its website and called the ruling “unfair,” adding that the decision will be a major shakeup for religions across Japan.
“Since the assassination of former Prime Minister Abe, there has been a lot of misinformation circulating in the media and social media about our organization,” it said. “We sincerely ask that the general public does not discriminate against our congregation.”
The group said that it plans to appeal to the Tokyo High Court.
In handing down the ruling, presiding Judge Kenya Suzuki said “the order was necessary and inevitable” even if the right to freedom of religion is considered.
While the group revised its internal governance in 2009 to prevent its congregation from engaging in coercive tactics in the solicitation of donations, the group’s members continued on with similar tactics — although not as frequently as before, the ruling said.
“There were damages on an unprecedentedly large scale,” Suzuki said.
The Unification Church’s dubious tactics came to light when the suspect of Abe’s fatal shooting in July 2022 blamed his family’s financial ruin on his mother’s excessive donations to the group. He targeted Abe for his perceived ties to the group.
In the wake of the shooting, numerous former followers and their families came forward with similar stories.
In October 2023, the education ministry applied to the Tokyo District Court to revoke the Unification Church's religious corporation status.
This is only the third time that a court has stripped a group of its religious corporation status. The Unification Church is preceded by Aum Shinrikyo, which is responsible for the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, and Myokakuji Temple in Wakayama Prefecture, whose top leader was convicted of fraud.
But this is the first time that a court has ruled solely based on civil court findings of a group's unlawful actions rather than on criminal convictions.
Unlike previous cases, the Unification Church has not faced any criminal charges.
The Tokyo District Court acceded to the education ministry's request based solely on the outcome of 32 civil lawsuits in which various courts recognized the church’s practices as unlawful and awarded total damages exceeding ¥2.2 billion ($14.6 million).
The ministry argued that the civil court rulings recognizing the church’s conduct as unlawful satisfy the violation of law criteria under the Religious Corporations Act. The church countered that the law refers only to criminal violations, and that civil cases such as tort should not be taken into consideration.
The law also requires that the illegal activities must have significantly harmed public welfare.
The ministry contended that the church’s repeated and sustained solicitation of large donations over four decades forced followers into financial and emotional distress, and as such met this threshold. The ministry gathered testimony from more than 170 victims, in addition to the 32 civil court rulings, to build its case.
The Unification Church, for its part, maintained that donations are part of its religious expression and insisted that it had implemented internal compliance measures in 2009. It argued that complaints had drastically decreased since then and that its actions lacked the maliciousness claimed by the ministry.
In a separate case earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled that the Unification Church’s civil violations involving intentional or negligent harm could be grounds for stripping the group of its religious corporation status.
In a news conference after the verdict, a group comprising almost 350 lawyers representing former followers of the Unification Church across the country commended the ruling for understanding the victims and listening intently to their complaints.
“This will have an impact on the relief of victims,” said head lawyer Susumu Murakoshi. “I expect it will help us advance our efforts toward compensation and prevent future harm.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi welcomed the ruling later Tuesday, adding that the government plans to continue to support victims of the Unification Church through consultation services and relief measures.
“We will continue to do everything we can to support the victims and take necessary measures based on relevant laws,” he said.
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