Japan's 1st forced sterilization plaintiff gets ¥15 mil settlement

15m JPY? Surely there are a couple of 0 missing from the end? 6 years fighting for 15m is nothing as the lawyers fees have raked up. She ends with 2-3m max.. i.e. Nothing

So in Japan, Govt can take your reproduction right and you'll just get 15 Million Yen in compensation or just USD 100,000.

For Japan, that's a fairly large legal settlement. They're usually quite small by western standards, similar to their light criminal sentences.

Lawyers require a fee upfront and then 8-10% of the compensation.

I hope the government pay all the costs incurred. So any compensation is free of costs and tax. Makes you wonder why the wheels of justice turn soooo slowly, whether that’s the US, UK, Japan, etc etc. Is it the hope that the costs will be mitigated be the attrition rate as the years go by. In fact it makes me wonder why anyone would have to actually go to court over this. To even actually defend is,as a lawyer, has to be quite disgusting.

As a post edit, the 9,000 who supposedly consented, do they get the compensation too. This needs to be answered in the article. Some may genuinely have had a condition where they may not fully have been aware what they were signing. Some may have just went along with it since they were part of an institution with power and authority above them, and they had no advocates.

Court costs are borne by each party.

garypenToday  

For Japan, that's a fairly large legal settlement. They're usually quite small by western standards, similar to their light criminal sentences.

That is true, but it doesn't make that settlement just. (And remember, in Japan, civil plaintiffs must post a bond that is a percentage of the amount of damages they seek--which many have noted (Harvard's Mark Ramseyer for one) poses a structural barrier and hindrance to litigation.

As for light criminal sentences, that is true too (see below). The Japanese judiciary really go by the book--Japan does not provide sentencing guidelines. To quote: "...an applicable sentence range is provided for each crime. The judges have discretion to decide the sentence within that sentence range. The public prosecutor makes sentencing recommendations in the closing arguments at the trial, and practically it affects the sentencing by the judge to some extent. However, there is no guideline or standard for sentencing recommendations by a public prosecutor, and he decides the sentencing recommendation by comparing similar cases." (https://www.nishimura.com/sites/default/files/images/49658.pdf).

I'd opine that the death penalty would not qualify as "light" where the accused is not told of their execution date until the morning they hang them. (Which makes me wonder why the hirsute Shoko Asahara didn't just levitate out of his cell when they came for him....but that is another story....)