The U.S. Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in a U.S. district court. The government accuses the search engine giant of eliminating other companies' chances of making inroads into the internet service market by using its overwhelming power.
Google has about a 90% share of the worldwide online search engine market. According to the complaint and other sources, the tech giant has forbidden smartphone producers to have other web search services installed as default settings in their products to maintain its market superiority. Google has also been paying Apple Inc. several billion dollars every year to have its search engine installed in iPhones as a standard measure.
iPhones and devices that use Google's operating software occupy the majority of the smartphone market. By taking in search engine users on these smartphones, Google is able to collect a massive amount of personal information on individuals. The firm has expanded its profits from online ads using people's data.
The U.S. Justice Department deemed that Google's business practice has prevented newcomers from venturing into the market and hindered fair competition. The Justice Department also argues that as a result of Google's continued monopoly, the quality of online search services, including rules on the protection of privacy, has not been improved and the interest of consumers has been compromised.
This is the first major antitrust lawsuit against an information technology giant in about 20 years since Microsoft was sued. The issue at stake at the time was Microsoft's attempt to install internet browsing software in its computer operating software that was widely shared to eliminate competition. Following the lawsuit, the global tech giant came under stricter public scrutiny, which has led to the rise of emerging tech firms including Google.
Up until now, the four tech giants known as "GAFA" -- Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple -- have avoided strict regulations by the U.S. government. This was because emphasis has been placed on the significance of their roles in contributing to America's economic growth and their international competitiveness.
As oligopoly has further increased, however, it has come to a point where their clients are forced into disadvantageous contracts and authorities cannot ignore their adverse effects of preventing new tech firms entering into the market.
The U.S. government has launched the legal action due to these circumstances, but the lawsuit alone cannot protect the interest of users. The root cause of GAFA-bashing lies in their practice of neglecting the protection of private information.
While Japan and European countries have stepped up regulations for these tech giants over information protection, loopholes could be created without proper rules in their home country of the U.S. Washington needs to create an environment where consumers feel secure about using those online services.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has been pressing for Japan's three major carriers NTT Docomo Inc., SoftBank Corp. and KDDI Corp. to significantly reduce mobile phone charges.
Cell phones are now infrastructure devices essential to people's daily lives, and have become so widespread that an average individual owns at least one of them. Meanwhile, data fees have remained high. Surely, users are dissatisfied with the cost.
According to research by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, a 20 gigabyte data plan suitable for using streaming services and other features costs over 8,000 yen ($75.80) a month in Tokyo, which is about three times the price in London. A household consisting of two or more people pays an average of over 100,000 yen (roughly $947) for mobile phone fees per year -- an increase of about 30% in the last 10 years.
Teleworking has become popular in Japan due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. In a hearing of opinions by the internal affairs ministry, some have complained of rising additional charges as they are using up mobile data due to videoconferencing. Household expenses are increasing in such cases.
An oligopoly where the three big carriers have about 90% of the domestic market share is what's behind this problem. These carriers tend to avoid competition that depletes their management strength, and aim to secure profits by retaining customers.
In reality, the operating profit margins of the three major carriers stand at roughly 20% and remarkably surpass the level of leading manufacturers including Toyota Motor Corp. whose margin stands at around 8%. As one of only a few businesses that use limited public radio waves, any excess profits should be returned to users.
In 2018 when Prime Minister Suga was chief Cabinet secretary, he said "mobile phone charges could be cut by 40%" and set out to prod carriers to reduce their rates. In response, the internal affairs ministry took measures such as basically prohibiting carriers to offer discounts when selling devices and data services as a set to lock customers in for lengthy periods, but the move produced no results.
Suga is poised to achieve a reduction in mobile phone fees at the initiative of the government. But data prices are not official prices to be decided by the government, and excessive political intervention is essentially undesirable.
Softbank has started to consider a cheap 20 gigabyte data plan costing 5,000 yen or less a month. There is a danger that a government-set price cut may not last. What users really want is for a quality service to be widely provided at a modest price.
The internal affairs ministry plans to encourage competition by abolishing charges for switching carriers without changing one's phone number, but this isn't enough. The Japanese government should make thorough efforts to create an environment where low-cost smartphone businesses like Rakuten Inc. that recently entered the market can compete by demonstrating their unique services.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga reached one month in office on Oct. 16. Right after he was elected to the post by Japan's Diet, the legislature went into recess. We haven't even heard Suga make the policy speech that customarily kicks off the autumn extraordinary Diet session.
And even as this irregular state of affairs for a new Cabinet continues, Suga has been popping off one concrete policy measure after another, including the creation of a "digital agency" to spearhead the digitization of government processes. Suga has also benefited with the people from his image as a self-made man, and his new administration was without a doubt quite popular at its launch.
However, the political winds are already shifting.
An Oct. 9-11 opinion survey by public broadcaster NHK showed support for the Suga Cabinet stood at 55% -- a 7-point drop from September. It seems likely the furor over Suga's refusal to appoint six of 105 scholars nominated to the Science Council of Japan played a leading role in this decline.
Including the science council affair, we can say that we have gotten a good glimpse of "Suga-style politics" in the past month. One defining feature of his style is his utilitarian approach, summed up in his push to get mobile phone fees lowered. For consumers, this has a real financial impact similar to a tax decrease, and is bound to be welcomed by the Japanese people -- an effect Suga was doubtlessly aiming for. Furthermore, when it comes to coronavirus pandemic policy, the prime minister's emphasis on the "Go To" subsidy campaigns seems to indicate a clear government shift toward putting economic recovery first.
Meanwhile, the handling of the Science Council of Japan appointments revealed the Suga administration's overbearing and coercive side. If the six scholars were in fact rejected because they had penned positions critical of the government, this would in effect be the same as using personnel appointments as a weapon to cow the bureaucracy.
The core reason for rejecting the six scholars has still not been revealed. On Oct. 16, Suga met for talks with Science Council of Japan president Takaaki Kajita, but Suga apparently did not speak in any definite terms on why the scholars were crossed off the nominee list.
We are at a place now where whenever the prime minister explains something on this, more questions arise. We wonder if Suga had assumed the science council appointments would not become such a major issue.
The dominant mode of thinking in past Liberal Democratic Party administrations held that power should be exercised with restraint. However, it must be said that the Suga government's reckless and irresponsible use of power is following in the same vein as that of his predecessor, Shinzo Abe.
Furthermore, Suga's designs for the image of Japan and its diplomatic direction are as yet a mystery. When the autumn extraordinary Diet session gets underway on Oct. 26, the new administration will face some very serious questions indeed.

Japan's Supreme Court recently ruled that the different treatment of regular and nonregular employees, in which the latter are not provided with bonuses or severance pay, is reasonable.
In two separate cases brought by a former part-time employee at a university and two former contract workers at a subway kiosk, high courts ruled earlier that not paying such allowances to nonregular workers was illegal. The top court, however, overturned the lower court decisions and finalized the workers' legal defeat.
The top court recognized in both cases that jobs done by nonregular employees are not as complex as those performed by regular employees. It also noted that nonregular workers are not subject to being transferred.
We must argue that the top court should have looked more carefully into the reality of employment. The latest ruling could put a damper on the promotion of Japan's "equal work, equal pay" system launched this past April.
In fact, one of the justices dissented, stating that job description for the fixed-term contract worker did not greatly differ from that for their regular employee colleagues, and that it was unreasonable for their employer not to provide the contract worker severance pay.
Among the issues with the different treatment of regular and nonregular employees is the strong sense of unfairness felt by the latter over seasonal bonuses and severance pay, as these are usually sizeable.
The latest ruling pointed out that the objectives of these allowances were to attract staff and encourage workers to stay. In its supporting opinion, the top court said that to pay retirement allowances, employers must save funds over an extended period, and this is largely left to their discretion. The ruling can therefore be regarded as lending weight to companies' positions.
At the same time, the ruling also specifically noted that in some circumstances the non-provision of such allowances cannot be permitted. The highest court's decision should not be used as a hall pass for employers to arbitrarily decide labor conditions.
Meanwhile, related legislation has been revised and developed to put the equal work, equal pay system into practice, and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has created a guideline for the operation of the laws. While differences in the provision of bonuses is listed as unreasonable, the content remains unspecific, and there is no clear guidance regarding severance pay.
In reality, labor and management negotiations play a decisive role in improving the treatment of nonregular workers. Labor unions should actively get involved in the matter. Support from administrative bodies is also essential.
Nonregular workers make up nearly 40% of Japan's labor force, but their pay remains at around 60% of regular workers'. It is clear that nonregular laborers have been put in a tough position.
Amid the coronavirus crisis, nonregular workers are treated as employment adjustment valves, and many of them are being fired or having their contracts terminated. Companies must wake up and realize that it is their responsibility to improve the treatment of such workers.
As ways of working have become more diverse, fair treatment of workers is becoming more important not only for the workers themselves, but also for companies trying to secure labor. Japan must not stop the work to correct the difference in how workers are treated.

New criticism has erupted over a statement Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga made in connection with the refusal to appoint six of 105 recommended scholars to the Science Council of Japan.
Suga stated that the documents on his final decision contained the names of 99 candidates, telling the Mainichi Shimbun and other news organizations that he did not see the full list of 105 recommended candidates including the six who were rejected. Did he want to say that he was not the one who made the decision to eliminate the six, and that the list contained only 99 names from the outset?
It is true that the decision document bearing the prime minister's seal contains 99 names. But the Science Council of Japan submitted a list containing 105 names to the Cabinet Office.
If the prime minister did not see the list of recommended candidates from the council, then this would conflict with his statement that he made his decision on the council appointments "from the perspective of ensuring activities with a comprehensive, aerial view."
Suga played a central role in the administration of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who began to intervene in the personnel affairs of the science council. It would be strange if this issue was not passed down to Suga from Abe.
So, who exactly made the decision not to appoint the six scholars?
Japan's law on the science council states that the council's members "shall be appointed by the prime minister based on recommendations by the council." The only one with authority to make the appointments is the prime minister.
If the Cabinet Office or the Cabinet Secretariat deleted the names of the six before they reached Suga, then it would be infringing on the right of the science council to select candidate members. And if the prime minister made appointments that were not based on the recommendations by the council, then there is a possibility he could be violating the law on the science council.
On Oct. 12, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato explained that the full list of 105 names was attached to the decision document as reference material, but the prime minister probably meant that he hadn't looked at it closely.
But can Suga make assessments on whether "balanced activities over a wide sphere," as he stated, can be achieved without seeing the detailed data?
Kato has indicated that the prime minister received an explanation about how to consider the appointments before the decision was reached, so there is no problem there. But if that's the case, what kind of explanation did he receive on how to deal with the issue?
All the government has done is make its explanations fit together, while questions about its move have cropped up one after the other.
The nucleus of the issue is, why didn't the prime minister appoint the six recommended members? What reasons led to that decision, and when? Suga has a responsibility to provide an explanation to the Japanese public.

Amid mounting criticism over the government's refusal to appoint six scholars as new members of the Science Council of Japan, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga once again failed to provide concrete reasons for the move during an interview with the Mainichi Shimbun on Oct. 9.
Suga merely reiterated his position that his decision came from the view that the council "should engage in comprehensive and panoramic activities, namely well-balanced activities with broader perspectives, and should be an entity that can earn public understanding as an organization into which the state budget is injected."
His reasoning is far too abstract for people to understand why he rejected the six researchers among 105 candidates nominated to the council.
The law under which the Science Council of Japan was established stipulates that its members "shall be appointed by the prime minister based on recommendations by the council."
When this stipulation was being deliberated in the Diet in 1983, then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone said that the appointment of council members by the government was "merely a formality." He therefore stated that "academic freedom and independence (of the council) will be guaranteed."
The government has argued that its latest position is not inconsistent with past statements in the Diet, and that it has not changed its interpretation of the law.
The government brought up in-house documents that the Cabinet Office apparently created in 2018. The documents state that the prime minister "cannot be regarded as being obliged" to appoint members endorsed by the science council. The papers note that the prime minister can exercise its supervisory authority to a certain extent through personnel affairs.
The documents base their claims on Article 15 of the Japanese Constitution, which stipulate: "The people have the inalienable right to choose their public officials and to dismiss them." However, this provision lays out general principles. The government's explanation that the prime minister has personnel and supervisory authority over the Science Council of Japan, a highly independent scientific body and whose members are public servants in the special service, is unconvincing.
If the kind of reasoning that the government provided in the latest case can go unchallenged, it could affect personnel affairs of other highly independent administrative bodies including the Public Prosecutors Office and the Board of Audit of Japan.
Suga is attempting to centralize power in the prime minister's office by exercising his authority over personnel issues, and to use it as a driving force in propelling policy measures. Yet if he fails to take fair and transparent procedures, then such endeavors could give rise to authoritarian rule.
Some within the administration are calling for a review to the status of the Science Council of Japan. They are, however, switching the focus of argument by pointing the finger at the way the council stands, without answering the questions regarding the prime minister's refusal to appoint the recommended academics to the council.
Administrative reform minister Taro Kono has suggested that the Science Council of Japan will be made subject to the government's administrative reform efforts. It is obvious that the government is aiming to apply pressure on the council under the name of administrative revamp.
Prime Minister Suga ought to provide reasons that are rational and can convince the public regarding his rejection of the six scholars. If he is unable to do that, he should retract the decision.

The Japanese government is expected to set standardized requirements for the establishment of special needs schools, such as the size of the school building and the variation of facilities depending on the number of students -- just as in regular elementary, junior high and high schools.
The number of students in special needs schools in Japan has increased by 1.2 times over the last 10 years, and the issue of overcrowding and the lack of classrooms is becoming worse. Public special education schools were lacking a total of 3,162 classrooms by the end of the 2019 school year, or a shortage of an average of three classrooms per school.
This is because the pace of the establishment and expansion of special needs schools is not keeping up with the increase in the number of parents and guardians seeking special education that suits the characteristics of certain disabilities.
For the reasons above, such schools have been forced to take desperate measures.
It is not rare to see, for example, a classroom being partitioned using curtains to conduct a math lesson on the one side and a music lesson on the other. Obviously the sound can be heard from both sides. There are schools that have to use the library as a classroom, and have no choice but to stock up the books in the hallway as there are no rooms for them.
There are increased concerns about the issue of overcrowding in special education schools amid the spread of the coronavirus. There are quite a few children with underlying diseases who attend such schools. Teachers must keep their eyes on the students more carefully than in regular classes.
The establishment of official requirements is expected to be a major step in improving such an educational environment.
The Japanese government had an indecisive attitude on the issue until now, with its reason being the unique condition of special needs schools, where children with various kinds of disabilities attend. It is not easy to set a standard that fits all types of disabilities including visual and hearing impairments as well as intellectual disabilities. When setting requirements, the government needs to provide consideration to people with different kinds of disabilities.
Not only is the central government urged to set requirements, it must also provide enhanced financial support to local governments that host special education schools, as well as encourage acquirements of more land for the schools and support the use of abandoned school buildings that have been renovated.
The national government is promoting "inclusive education," where all children can learn together, whether they have disabilities or not. However, in reality there are issues in the system to accept children with disabilities in regular schools, such as the lack of teachers with expert knowledge.
When children and their parents or guardians choose whether their kids should attend a regular or a special needs school, it is difficult to say that a freedom of choice is guaranteed if a feeling of hesitation and anxiety comes before any other emotions.
Japan must look into the future and proceed with creating an environment where all children can have access to an education without concerns.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) has decided to shell out 4.2 trillion yen (about $39.7 billion) to make mobile carrier NTT Docomo Inc. into a wholly owned subsidiary -- a possible game-changing move for Japan's telecommunications sector.
NTT was late to roll out a 5G network compared to the United States and China. Meanwhile, it is being hard-pressed by IT giants dubbed GAFA -- Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple on the online services front. In short, its international competitiveness is low and getting worse.
Smartphones are a must-have in both business and people's personal lives, and the telecom giant is hoping that taking full control of major smartphone market player Docomo will turn NTT's fortunes around. To make that happen, reworking Docomo into a company providing truly user-centric services will be key.
Docomo was created in 1992 when NTT's cellphone business was split off from the company at the direction of the Japanese government. The aim was to prevent NTT from becoming overwhelmingly dominant in Japan's nascent mobile phone market as it was with landlines. Docomo has grown since the middle of the decade as mobiles became people's main communication tool.
However, the arrival of the smartphone era dealt Docomo a punishing blow. Competitors SoftBank Corp. and KDDI Corp. -- marketed under the au brand -- were able to start selling Apple's hyper-popular iPhone before Docomo, and the company began hemorrhaging customers. Before iPhones landed in Japan, Docomo boasted a market share of about 60%. That has fallen to 37%, while its operating profit has sunk to the lowest of the three big carriers.
NTT has considered reabsorbing Docomo before. However, NTT is still more than 30%-owned by the Japanese government, whose past policy of keeping the two companies separate has cast a sort of binding spell on NTT's strategy. And so the company has been looking carefully for the moment when it might be allowed to get full control of Docomo.
That moment has finally arrived, propelled in part by the determination of the new administration of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to boost Japanese firms' international competitiveness. The government has high hopes that NTT, with its extensive stock of capital and skilled workers, will become a driving force behind the Japanese IT sector's return to glory. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has also given its blessing to the deal.
There is also hope in official circles that Docomo will be able to reduce mobile phone fees if the company's management can be improved. Suga has been pressing for reduced mobile phone charges since he was the chief Cabinet secretary under the previous prime minister, Shinzo Abe. However, even after taking measures such as prohibiting offering discounts for bundling the cost of handsets with data and call charges, the push for lower monthly phone fees has yielded little, and has come to a complete halt.
And so when NTT President Jun Sawada said the firm had a plan to reduce fees, it was a godsend for the Suga administration.
However, administration of Japan's telecom system risks being warped if the government is seen to be bestowing too much favor on NTT. Including for the sake of the discount mobile carriers leasing NTT's telecommunications network, the government must work to ensure a fair competitive environment.

Japan recently witnessed a serious case of political intervention that could threaten academic freedom in this country.
In selecting new members for the Science Council of Japan, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga decided not to appoint six of the 105 candidates the council had recommended. Looking back over the decades since the council's founding in 1949, it is an extremely rare state of affairs.
The six scholars were all experts in the humanities and social sciences. What they had in common was that they had been critical of controversial security legislation and organized crime law revisions that established charges for conspiracy -- both key bills passed under the administration of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
If it turns out that the prime minister's office had the intention of eliminating scholars who didn't match its inclinations based on their past statements, then it could find itself in violation of Article 23 of the Constitution, which states, "Academic freedom is guaranteed." The prime minister should reverse his move.
The Science Council of Japan is formed by scientists who have produced outstanding research results and made other achievements. It is a body representing some 870,000 researchers across the country, leading to its nickname: "scholars' Diet." While its activities are publicly funded, its independence is stipulated under the Act on the Science Council of Japan.
Under current rules, the council picks candidates to replace those whose terms have ended, and the prime minister appoints new members based on those endorsements. In the past, the government has generally accepted the recommendations as-is.
The system is based on respect for academic freedom and autonomy. In 1983, the method of picking members changed from an election system to a recommendation system. At the time, the independence of the council was questioned in the Diet, but the minister in charge responded, "The act of appointment is merely a formality, and people who are recommended are appointed without change."
This time, however, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato stated, "When in a position of making appointments, it is only natural to scrutinize them." This statement is at odds with past Diet statements. If the prime minister's office has changed its interpretation of the law, then it should provide an account in the Diet of how this happened.
The science council has decided to submit a renewed request seeking the appointment of the rejected six candidates, while demanding a reason for why they were not appointed as recommended. The government must give a proper reply.
During World War II, many scientists were made to cooperate with the government. It is widely known that military officials ordered Nobel laureate Hideki Yukawa and other physicists to attempt to develop an atomic bomb. When advancing thought control, scientists who posed an obstacle were expelled. The Takigawa Incident, in which the government clamped down on a law professor at Kyoto Imperial University, and an incident where a constitutional scholar who promoted the theory of the emperor as an organ of the government was accused of lese-majeste are typical examples of this.
The science council was created based on reflection on such incidents. Experts from various fields had gathered, transcending their positions, to provide counsel and other information to the government.
Japanese physicist Shinichiro Tomonaga, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics along with two other scientists in 1965, released a statement in 1967, when he was president of the Science Council of Japan, that the council would never be involved in military research. Fifty years later, in 2017, the council again expressed a cautious stance toward partaking in research that could be diverted to military use.
The government has set the promotion of science and technology as a pillar of Japan's growth strategy. In line with this, the government's Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency established a system to support robotic technology research and other fields that could have military uses. But partially because of the statement by the science council, there have not been as many applications to take part in this research as the agency had hoped.
We cannot deny the possibility that in the future, the government may try to use its power in personnel appointments to open the way to intervention in the natural sciences. There are even fears that the appointment of Japan's national university presidents could be affected.
The administration of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe strengthened its control over government bureaucrats through the unified management of senior official appointments at central government ministries and agencies via the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs. Those who complied with the wishes of the administration were given important posts, while those who expressed exceptions were given the cold shoulder. Amid this atmosphere, officials shrunk back, and the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats became warped. And in the center of this was Suga, who was chief Cabinet secretary at the time.
A typical example of this is the director-generalship of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau. When preparing to change the interpretation of the Constitution to allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, the bureau broke with the convention of promoting an internal member to the position of director-general, and instead installed a figure from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who was in favor of the change.
The Abe administration also changed its interpretation of the law to extend the tenure of the superintending prosecutor at the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office, who was viewed as being "close to the prime minister's office."
The underlying trait that has continued from the former administration is the tendency of its leaders to think, "We have been chosen through an election." This leads to the idea that if a party wins in an election that it has been given carte blanche. But authority is something that should be implemented with controls.
Prime Minister Suga has stated that bureaucrats who oppose policies decided by the government will be transferred. It is trying to advance its policies by putting pliable people into key posts.
The adverse effects of strong-arm tactics have already come to light, and so if the prime minister's office is trying to extend that to the scientific world, it cannot be overlooked.
Science is the foundation of a cultured nation. And science develops in a free environment that does not expel diverging opinions or objections. If such an environment were lost, Japan would have no future.

In a lawsuit brought by some 3,600 residents of Fukushima Prefecture and neighboring prefectures against the Japanese government and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station for the damage the residents suffered from the nuclear disaster that broke out in March 2011, the Sendai High Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering the defendants to pay compensation to them.
There are approximately 30 civil lawsuits pertaining to the nuclear disaster that have been filed across the country, but this is the first time that a high court has recognized the state's compensation liability for the incident. As verdicts over the national government's negligence have been split in the lower courts, the latest ruling carries great weight.
At issue in the series of ongoing lawsuits is how the "long-term assessment" released by the government's Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion in 2002 should be interpreted. At stake here is whether the nuclear power plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (TEPCO), and the national government should have implemented measures based on experts' predictions that a massive tsunami could occur off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture.
The latest ruling in the high court, as well as the lower court, determined that the long-term assessment was an important one, and that measures against the predictions had been necessary. The ruling stated that "TEPCO's desire to do its best to avoid new measures stood out."
The high court harshly criticized the government for "failing to fulfill the role of regulatory authority, which it was expected to undertake." The lower court ruled that the government's responsibility for the disaster was less than that of TEPCO, but this time around, both the government and TEPCO were found to be equally responsible.
It is only natural that the state, which has been promoting nuclear power as a matter of national policy, is held responsible. The recognition of the government's responsibility in the latest ruling is appropriate, and the state must take the ruling seriously.
The ruling increased the compensation amount to twice the figure that was ordered to be paid in the first trial. The high court recognized the awarding of damages for suffering to people who were in evacuation-ordered zones for "losing their hometowns," and expanded the areas eligible for compensation.
The relief system for victims of nuclear disasters is designed so that TEPCO is responsible for compensation, and the state provides assistance. The amount of compensation is calculated based on the government's guidelines determined by variables such as location of residence.
However, because the relief system does not presuppose any negligence by TEPCO or the government, the amount of compensation has been criticized as being too low. TEPCO has continued to reject the payment of compensation in settlement negotiations outside of lawsuits that go over the maximum amount in the government guidelines.
Based on the fact that a high court has clearly acknowledged TEPCO's and the government's negligence, there is a need to proceed with a review of the government's guidelines.
Some 9 1/2 years have passed since the nuclear disaster broke out, but who bears legal responsibility for it has been kept vague. To draw lessons for the prevention of another disaster, TEPCO and the government should not appeal the latest ruling, and instead seek a speedy conclusion to the lawsuit.
Even now, many people are still in evacuation, and many areas are still designated difficult-to-return zones. The state must fulfill its responsibility for the nuclear crisis, and proactively deal with damage recovery.