Issues: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombings

Kwak Kwi Hoon versus the Japanese National Government and the Osaka Prefectural Government

Filed: October 1, 1998

Kwak Kwi Hoon is a Korean man who, at the age of twenty, was drafted by the Japanese Imperial Army under the Korean Draft Act in 1944, being attached to the Japanese Second Western Fighting Unit.  He moved from Korea to Hiroshima with his unit and was stationed in the city when it was bombed by the U.S. on August 6, 1945.  He moved back to Korea after the war, but returned to Japan for medical treatment caused by the atomic bomb in May 1998.  Kwak was eligible to receive nearly ¥32,000 in monthly health-care allowances for 5-years under the Atomic Bomb Victims Relief Law passed by the Japanese national government in 1994.  As such, the Osaka prefectural government provided him with this assistance.  However, when he returned to Korea in July 1998, the Osaka prefectural government discontinued his monthly assistance on the basis that he was no longer residing in Japan.  The prefectural government based its decision on a 1974 Health and Welfare Ministry directive that stated that the law that preceded the 1994 Atomic Bomb Victims Relief Law covered only A-bomb victims residing in Japan.  Prefectural government officials claimed that the directive applied to the new law as well.  The discontinuation prompted Kwak to file suit against the Osaka prefectural government and the Japanese national government at the Osaka District Court on October 1, 1998, demanding ¥2 million (roughly $16,000) in compensatory back-payments.

On June 1, 2001, Judge Jun Miura of the Osaka District Court issued his ruling in Kwak’s favor, arguing that he was entitled to compensation from the government.  Therefore, Judge Miura ruled that the Osaka prefectural government had to renew its payments and pay Kwi-Hoon ¥2 million in back-payments.  Judge Miura’s ruling was based on the fact that: (1) the 1994 Atomic Bomb Relief Law had no clause stating that atomic-bomb victims lose official recognition if they cease to reside in Japan and (2) the prefectural government may have violated Article 14 of the Japanese constitution in not paying overseas atomic bomb survivors.  The article calls for equality under the law regardless of race, creed, sex, social status, or family origin.  The decision marked the first such ruling by a Japanese court to an overseas victim of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.

The Osaka prefectural government and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (previously the Health and Welfare Ministry) appealed the ruling on June 15, 2001, moving the case to the Osaka High Court.  The basis for the appeal was: (1) the Relief Law is not intended for those living overseas, (2) those who cannot receive medical treatment in Japan do not qualify for a health-care allowance, and (3) the national government had won a similar case in the Hiroshima District Court in 1999.  On December 5, 2002 Judge Makoto Nemoto of the High Court issued his ruling in Kwak’s favor, thereby rejecting the prefectural and national government’s appeal and upholding the District Court’s decision.  Governor Fusae Ota of the Osaka prefectural government accepted the ruling, but the national government initially showed its hesitance at accepting the ruling, due mostly to internal disagreements within the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare between Minister Chikara Sakaguchi, who did not want to appeal, and bureaucrats, who did want to appeal. More than a week after the ruling, on December 18, Minister Sakaguchi announced that the government would not appeal the ruling.  Based on this decision, the government would therefore retroactively pay medical allowances to Kwak.  More broadly, the acceptance meant that Japan would pay medical allowances for five years to holders of atomic-bomb survivor health cards living outside of Japan.