THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2010/04/24
The government filed an appeal Thursday with the Tokyo High Court over a lower court ruling earlier this month in which it was ordered to disclose documents on a secret Japan-U.S. pact on the 1972 return of Okinawa to Japanese sovereignty.
In a statement explaining its position, the Foreign Ministry argued that the district court ruling was handed down without due consideration to the ministry's "thorough investigation" into internal documents at the instruction of Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada.
The lawsuit was filed in 2009 by 25 plaintiffs, including a former Mainichi Shimbun reporter, seeking to overturn a 2008 decision by the foreign and finance ministries not to disclose the seven documents because the ministries argued the records did not exist.
Some of the seven documents detail an agreement by the Japanese government to shoulder the cost of restoring Okinawan land used by U.S. forces to its former condition in line with the reversion.
On April 9, the Tokyo District Court overturned the ministries' decision and ordered the government to disclose the information, saying it did not hold a thorough investigation on the matter.
In March, Okada released the results of an experts' study, which concluded that a secret pact in the broad sense existed for the agreement for Japan shouldering the land restoration cost, even though no document was found.
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