A Dangerous Precedent: The Pending Case of Japan v. Unification Church

Over two years ago, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot dead while delivering a campaign speech for the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan. The shooter: Tetsuya Yamagami, a former second-generation member of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification(FFWPU), otherwise known as the Unification Church. Yamagami was motivated by the intense pressure the church put on his mother to donate large sums of money to the church. Since this tragedy, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT) has filed a request to dissolve the Unification Church due to its solicitation and financial practices. It claims:

“From around 1980 to 2023, UC believers caused significant damage to many people by making them donate or buy goods by restricting their free decision and preventing their normal judgment, which resulted in disrupting the peaceful life of many people including the family members of the guests [newcomers to the Church] by means of the following conducts.”

Over the past twelve hours, the Family Federation has put out a petition to stand against what it, and the United States government, calls an attack on religious freedom in violation of U.N declarations. However, the true fate of the case lies in Japanese law.

Under Article 81 of the Religious Corporations Act(RCA),  a religious organization may be dissolved (as relevant to this specific case), if:

"When the court finds that a cause which falls under any of the following items exists with regard to a religious corporation, it may order the dissolution of the religious corporation at the request of the competent authority, an interested person, or a public prosecutor, and by its own authority:

(i)in violation of laws and regulations, the religious corporation commits an act which is clearly found to harm public welfare substantially;"

The key in the statute is that, for public welfare to be considered, a religious organization must violate Japanese law. The next question is which law: criminal or civil? The Unification Church, on thirty-two occasions, has been found civilly liable for torts. Torts, according to legal analyst Eri Okada, are "from Articles 709 to 724 of Part III of the Civil Code." Article 709 of the Civil Code states:

"A person that has intentionally or negligently infringed the rights or legally protected interests of another person is liable to compensate for damage resulting in consequence."

It has proven without a doubt that the Unification Church committed extreme financial and solicitous malpractice in the past. Yamagami's family was not alone among the victims. However, such coercion is not a criminal offense in Japan. In fact, since the coercion was limited to verbal and religious pressure, the solicitation practices of the church are limited to cases of tort in civil court.

Since the Unification Church's practices are resolved in civil court, the final question remains: what does "in violation of laws and regulations" pertain to? The only precedent legal analysts can find is the case of Aum Shinrikyo in 1996. Shinrikyo was the leader of a cult that sought to commit mass murder through the use of toxic gas. Although murder is no doubt a crime, the appellants appealed the dissolution of the religious body to Japan's Supreme Court, arguing that disillusionment would "erode the basis of religious life of the believers of the appellant religion, and in substance, infringe upon the freedom of religion of the believers, and therefore, are against Article 20 of the Constitution [freedom of religion]." The Supreme Court determined the following:

"Thus, the regulation on religious organizations by the Law solely addresses the eclectic aspect of religious organizations and does not extent to its spiritual or religious aspects...The Law does not intend to interfere with the freedom of religion such as the conduct of religious rituals by the believers."

The scope of Article 81 of the RCA is relegated to its place in society, not the religious practices of the religious body. For this reason, the Supreme Court ruled that, regardless of the religious practitioners' beliefs, the body needed to be dissolved due to the violations of criminal law. However, the Court also ruled that such efforts must be done in a manner that "does not accompany any legal effect which prohibits or limits religious acts by the believers." Religious believers are still protected, regardless of the religious body's status.

The Supreme Court's decision offers little in regards to legal precedent. However, since dissolution must have the smallest possible effect on the believers themselves, it is implied that the standard for dissolution is rather high. From this perspective, torts do not apply to Article 81. This interpretive battle has played out in Japan's House committees. In 2022, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida argued that the law included "an illegal act under the Civil Code in cases where the act is found to be organized, malicious and continuous, and meets the requirements under the Religious Corporations Law." Opposition disagreed.

As an anonymous Japanese government official put it, "We didn’t study the interpretation of the law well enough." MEXT's case against the Unification Church could shape Japanese law in an unprecedented way. If the church is dissolved, the precedent is set that civil infractions that affect the public warrant dissolution. To translate this into U.S law: any lawsuit won against a religious body warrants the body's dissolution. Such a precedent is extremely dangerous. Torts and all kinds of civil lawsuits are brought before civil courts everyday, whether for accidents, disagreements, or with malicious actors. There is a reason the civil courts and code exist on a different plane from the criminal realm. 

If the Unification Church committed continuous crimes, then there may be a case for its dissolution. However, no clear crimes have been committed. In essence, the Japanese government wishes to exploit a vague statute to knock out an annoying actor in its society. At the same time, only during the crisis is the Unification Church in Japan apologizing and admitting its malpractice. If it wants to regain public trust, there must be zero shadows in its history. All of its manipulative solicitation practices must end. All financial records should be made public. Otherwise, another government may seek to do the same thing to the Church.

Sources

https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3898/en#je_ch9at6

https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3494/en#je_pt3ch5at1

https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3898/en#je_ch1at2

https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_en/detail?id=252

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14747441

http://arizonajournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Osaka.pdf