Some happy news, which we
haven’t had in a long time. Fukui District Court has given a provisional
disposition banning the restart of the Takahama Nuclear Power Plant. Fellow WAN
members and Suruga-shi City Councillor Harumi Kondaichi broke into smiles on news
footage. The representative and deputy representative for the plaintiffs were
both women. Attorneys Hiroyuki Kawai and Yuichi Kaido were seen among members
of the defense. I actually participated as a plaintiff, but since I was not
residing within a 100-kilometre radius of the power plant, I was seen as not at
risk of suffering harm and determined ineligible as a plaintiff. As a result,
nine members remained on the plaintiffs’ side.
The ruling was made by Justice
Hideaki Higuchi, the same judge who acknowledged the request to block the
restart of the Oi Nuclear Power Plant. This ruling was a bolder step up from
the previous one. He most likely studied intensively on nuclear reactors during
this time. This will likely be a ruling that will go down in history.
I feel that judges must feel isolated.
They probably cannot debate over topics with colleagues or persons related to
the field, or ask them for advice. If they did, they would likely be
immediately subjected to influences and pressure from all sides. As a judge, he
would probably be wary of the situation in the judicial sector as well. Mr.
Hideaki Higuchi has apparently just been transferred to Nagoya Family Court starting
this April. Prior to that, a petition to
challenge the judge, made by Kansai Electric, was rejected. Mr. Higuchi’s
simultaneous post at Fukui Regional Court had been acknowledged despite his
transfer. If the petition to challenge had gotten through, or if he had been
taken off the case as a result of his transfer… it would have been adequate
reason to be suspicious of political pressure coming from somewhere. At the ruling
to stop the restart of the Oi Nuclear Power Plant, Mr. Higuchi said, “The safety
of human lives cannot be measured on the same scale as business profits”.
Again, when making the provisional disposition to stop the restart of the
Takahama Nuclear Power Plant, Mr. Higuchi clearly declared that “the standards
of the Nuclear Regulation Authority are not reasonable.” Justice Higuchi, your
name will be marked in history.
The head of the committee,
Tanaka, has himself acknowledged that the new standards set out by the Nuclear
Regulation Authority are not absolutely safe – that a reactor cannot be
declared safe just because it has met the standard. The Nuclear Regulation
Authority may be the one to decide if a reactor meets the standard or not, but
politics is what decides whether or not the reactor will be restarted based on
those results. And we voters are the ones who decide whether or not to accept
that decision.
Here is an example of the
standards of the Nuclear Regulation Authority being “not reasonable”, as
pointed out by the judge: the standards stipulate that an earthquake-proof building
should be constructed in preparation for disasters; however – perhaps in
consideration of the wallets of electric power companies – there is a grace
period for the construction. (I didn’t know that! This must be why these
standards are said to be “lenient.”) The Nuclear Regulation Authority sets
standards in place, but still gives approval ratings even if reactors do not
meet those standards. As Justice Higuchi said, “Nature does not wait for the
grace period to pass,” and that is the truth.
I am
sure there are many people involved in the judicial sector who are deeply
disappointed that the courts were accomplices in the policy to promote nuclear
power. The involvement of the courts is also pointed out in Joachim Radkau’s “A
Short History of the Anti-Nuclear Movement in Germany”.
“The
persistence and success of Germany’s anti-nuclear movement can be explained not
only by the internal structure of the protest demonstrations, but also by
interactions between citizens’ protests, the media, politics, government
administration, the courts, and science.” (Joachim Radkau, “A Short History of
the Anti-Nuclear Movement in Germany.” Misuzu Shobo, 2012.)
He
claims that what Germany has and Japan doesn’t is this interaction between the
various actors.
Eiji
Oguma’s book, “Those Who Stop the Nuclear Plants” (Bungeishunju, 2013) points
out the following: “In Japan, ‘going nuclear-power-free’ has already been
realized.” Not only that – “Japan has done what no other movement in the world
has been able to do before, which was to dominate the government district over
a long-term period through the use of non-violent direct action. As a result,
the people changed the energy policy of the party in power [at the time].
“The
people are still too unaccustomed to their own accomplishment to acknowledge
this miracle as a miracle. They do not yet realize the depth of possibility
hidden within it.”
Indeed,
all fifty-four reactors currently in Japan have been stopped, and the reason
why it is taking so long to restart the reactors is because the citizens, using
all manner of methods, including judicial means, are putting a “hold” on the
process, and the administration cannot ignore this.
Lately I feel that the courts
are more sensitive to changes of the times than the legislature and
administration. If this is one of the results of judicial reform, then I
welcome it. The legislature has finally begun to take action regarding
discrimination against extramarital children following a ruling that it was
unconstitutional. It would probably turn out the same way for the lawsuit for
married couples to have different surnames. The judicature is more closely
aligned with the perceptions of the citizens in terms of going nuclear-power-free.
Until now, the judicature has always been thought of as the “hound” of the
government. It seems as if the time has come for the judicature to emphasize
its independence.
Translated by Rieko Shimizu and adapted by Naoko Hirose
