Lawsuit: Japan v. Okinawa

Japanese government filed a lawsuit against Okinawa Prefectural Government to Naha Branch of Fukuoka High Court on Tuesday. In a letter of complaint, the national government required withdrawal of the decision by Okinawan Governor Takeshi Onaga that revoked the approval for landfill in Henoko coastal area issued by his predecessor.   Frustrated with firm regional opposition based on democracy, Shinzo Abe administration brought the case to the court, abandoning dialogue with Okinawa.

Although bureaucrats in Tokyo are confident in winning the case, reasons for the lawsuit do not make much sense. The national government compared the disadvantage caused by Onaga’s decision to revoke the approval with possible disadvantage, if the approval were not revoked. National government appealed that danger of Futenma Marine Airbase would not be removed and the effort of both United States and Japanese government would be in vain.

People in Okinawa have been requiring relocation of Futenma Base out of Okinawa to remove the danger. Japanese government made mostly no effort to do that, directly posing burden coming from U.S. Removing danger in Futenma without relocating it to Henoko is not something impossible. If U.S. and Japanese government are successful in finding plan-B, their effort will not be in vain.

National government also appealed that ¥47.3 billion already spent for the construction would be in vain. It should be a cost of inappropriate exercise of administrative power, ignoring the opinion expressed in the gubernatorial election, abandoning achievement of consensus from Okinawa, and unilaterally proceeding to actual construction of landfill in Henoko.

It must be an inappropriate elaboration that the national government evaluated disadvantage of operative noise or negative impact on the nature in Henoko as “extremely small” and claimed that disadvantage of stopping landfill was the greater. “The attitude of national government to landfill the beautiful sea of Henoko and promote the construction cannot be even understandable for the people in Okinawa,” told Onaga in his press conference.

The national government seems to rely on a decision of the Supreme Court in 1968, in which administrative office can revoke its decision only when the disadvantage of maintaining the decision excessively override the disadvantage of revoking. But, power of regional government against national government is getting greater these years. It is not necessarily be a winnable case for the national government.