Large daily reports that Supreme Court ruling weighs in on current Family Federation dissolution case with ominous precedent set
Prepared by Knut Holdhus
One of Japan’s major newspapers, the Mainichi Shimbun, reported in an article by Kenji Tatsumi on 4th March about a Supreme Court ruling involving the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, formerly the Unification Church.
The First Petty Bench of the Supreme Court, with Justice Makoto Nakamura (中村誠) as presiding judge, issued a verdict 3rd March that upheld a previous ruling by Tokyo High Court in August 2024 that had imposed a 100,000 yen (ca. $ 670) fine on Tomihiro Tanaka (田中富広), the chairman of the Family Federation in Japan. Its appeal was thereby dismissed, and the verdict finalized the proceedings regarding the fine. The ruling was reached unanimously by all five justices.
The large daily doesn’t state it, but many might say that the verdict was as expected in a country with a widespread culture of presumed guilt, where government prosecutors secure convictions in 99.9% of criminal cases and win 98% of appeals. See “Does Japan Have an Independent Judiciary?”
The Mainichi article was headlined “‘Also Civil Wrongdoings a Requirement for Dissolution Order’ – Supreme Court’s First Ruling on Fine Against Former Unification Church”. The piece mentions that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) had originally asked Tokyo District Court to fine the religious organization for failing to answer some of the hundreds of questions that MEXT had given the Family Federation. The questioning was part of an investigation required by law in order for the authorities to be able to request a court order to dissolve the organization that until 2015 in Japan was called the Unification Church.
The left-center Mainichi Shimbun claimed that the Family Federation “refused to respond to the investigation”. What the newspaper failed to mention is that the religious organization claimed that many of the questions were impossible to answer to. One reason could be that it would give away sensitive personal information about members. Another reason was that some questions were so detailed that it would have taken up to one year to answer them properly.
The major daily also points out that the Supreme Court for the first time stated that “civil law violations are included as a requirement for a dissolution order.”
While the legal process regarding the dissolution order remains separate, the issue of whether a wrongdoing according to civil law qualifies as a requirement for dissolution is a key point of dispute in both cases. The Supreme Court’s decision may thus influence the forthcoming judgment on the government-requested dissolution order.
According to the Mainichi Shimbun, the Religious Corporations Act specifies that “acts that violate laws and regulations and are clearly recognized as significantly harming the public welfare” constitute grounds for a dissolution order. The act further allows authorities to invoke the right to ask investigative questions if there is suspicion of such acts.
Between November 2022 and July 2023, MEXT exercised this right on seven occasions, referencing civil lawsuits where former followers had claimed that they suffered financial harm due to the religious organization’s wrongdoings according to civil law. However, as the organization declined to answer several questions it claimed to be “impossible”, in September 2023 MEXT requested the lower court, Tokyo District Court, to fine the Family Federation for noncompliance.
In addition, the daily paper writes that in the current Tokyo District Court trial regarding the authorities’ request for a dissolution order, the relatively large religious organization has repeatedly stated that only criminal acts can be considered a prerequisite for dissolution, not acts classified by civil law as wrongdoings.
The court hearings in the dissolution case ended in January 2025, with a verdict expected in the near future.