Seeking Criminal Responsibility

Could the power company have predicted huge tsunami causing unprecedented accident of nuclear power plant? The first hearing of a criminal lawsuit on the former board members of Tokyo Electric Power Company over their responsibility for the accident in First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant was held in Tokyo Regional Court on Friday. While they apologized on bringing serious accident, the defendants rejected their predictability of huge tsunami taking all the power resource needed for the operation of the plant.

One great question is how many people have died with the nuclear accident. While tens of thousands of people died in tsunami of East Japan Great Earthquake in 2011, some argues that no one died with direct impact of radiation emitted from Fukushima plant. Others protest that argument, appealing that at least forty-four people in a nursery facility close to the nuclear plant died in their evacuation. Who was responsible for their deaths?

The focus on the case is whether TEPCO could predict that huge disaster before the tsunami came. A subsidiary company of TEPCO made an estimation of disaster control in 2008, which indicated a possibility of great tsunami with height of 15.7 meters at most. Maebashi Regional Court recognized in a civil lawsuit in March that the estimation had been a wrapping up of tsunami experts’ opinions and had to be considered well. The court ordered TEPCO to pay compensation for it.

In a criminal lawsuit seeking professional negligence resulting in death, it is supposed that the plaintiffs have to prove not only general but firm recognition of the board members about the danger. Realizing the difficulty of proving it, the prosecutors’ office abandoned filing a lawsuit against TEPCO. It was not the prosecutors but Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution that filed the lawsuit to Tokyo Regional Court.

In the hearing on Friday, Chairman of TEPCO at the time of the accident, Tsunehisa Katsumata, argued that he was unable to predict that accident after apologizing on causing the severe accident with spreading radioactive materials. Other two board members also appealed their innocence. They stated plainly about their inability of handling that great natural disaster and show no direct regret to deaths of the forty-four.

Proving responsibility of predicting consequence of natural disaster would supposedly be difficult. But if the court does not recognize criminal responsibility of power company on nuclear accident, safety measures for nuclear plant would not be a matter of accountability but cost performance. In terms of nuclear regulation policy, the government is not a stranger on the issue.