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Politicians, Teachers and the Japanese Constitution: Flag, Freedom and the State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Lawrence Repeta
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On September 21, 2006, a Tokyo District Court panel issued a sharp rebuke to nationalist politicians who seek to use the nation's public schools as tools to promote their romantic vision of Japan. The suit was filed on behalf of 401 Tokyo public school teachers in order to challenge an October 2003 order requiring them to stand before the Hinomaru flag and sing “Kimi ga Yo” at entrance and graduation ceremonies. The court not only found this order to be an unlawful violation of Japan's Fundamental Law of Education and the constitutional guarantee of “freedom of thought and conscience,” it also ordered the Tokyo Metropolitan government to pay each plaintiff 30,000 yen in compensation for emotional suffering.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , February 2007 , e13
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2007