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Japanese leader issues formal apology to leprosy patients

By Joseph Coleman, Associated Press, 5/25/2001 04:42

TOKYO (AP) Japan's new premier formally apologized for a harsh 1953 leprosy law on Friday and promised to compensate victims of the disease who were forced to live in quarantine colonies.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's statement came two days after he announced he would not appeal a court ruling ordering payments to 127 leprosy patients affected by the law, which was repealed in 1996.

He said the former leprosy policy imposed ''a major limitation and restriction'' on the human rights of many patients and offered a ''frank apology'' for the pain and suffering it caused.

''We cannot erase the history of the past and we cannot recover the lost time of the patients and the ex-patients,'' he said. ''But we will do our best to resolve the issue.''

Koizumi vowed compensation not only for the plaintiffs but for everyone quarantined under the law. There are an estimated 4,600 leprosy patients at state-run facilities around the country the same facilities where the afflicted lived under the quarantine law. After its repeal, many patients stayed on because they had nowhere else to go.

Koizumi said the government would begin working on a compensation bill, create a pension system for victims and set up a forum of patients and former patients to discuss the disease.

Japanese media have reported that total compensation for leprosy patients will probably be around $500 million, but officials have not confirmed that number. The 4,600 current patients and an unspecified number of ex-patients will be eligible.

In its May 11 decision, the Kumamoto District Court in southern Japan ordered the government to pay a total of $15 million to the 127 plaintiffs.

The court said the government violated the constitution and human rights by confining the patients to remote, government-controlled colonies. The law was left in place decades after it became common knowledge that leprosy was easily treatable and not highly contagious.

In a separate statement Friday, Japan's Cabinet objected to parts of the court order, saying lawmakers could not be held accountable for the unintended effects of the leprosy law.

''We have made an extremely unusual judgment to give up an appeal, but we will make it clear that this ruling has some legal problems,'' the Cabinet said.

The Cabinet statement also said that the statute of limitations in civil law restricts compensation to 20 years of suffering, rather than the 40 years ordered by the court.

Koizumi, who gained power last month after promising widespread reforms, was reportedly under strong pressure from advisers to appeal the court ruling. But public opinion was firmly in favor of compensating the patients.

Officials hinted that accepting the ruling could pose diplomatic problems because Japan is fighting other human-rights related lawsuits, notably by women from other parts of Asia who were forced into sexual slavery by Japan's military during World War II.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2001