The Fukuoka Excessive Court docket on Thursday upheld a decrease court docket’s ruling that Japan’s prohibition of twin nationality is constitutional, dismissing a declare made by a lady born in Japan who misplaced her Japanese citizenship after turning into a naturalized American citizen.
Plaintiff Yuri Kondo contended that the nationality regulation — which states that Japanese nationals forfeit their citizenship upon buying overseas citizenship — violates elementary human rights associated to the pursuit of happiness, self-determination and identification, as protected by the Structure.
In a information convention in Fukuoka on Thursday, Kondo expressed her disappointment with the ruling, saying that it was “chilly” in contrast with the district court docket’s ruling in December and fully disregarded every particular person’s expertise and scenario.
“(The judges) don’t have any curiosity in any respect in a human’s actual experiences,” she stated, including that they merely checked out what is claimed within the regulation, as a substitute of what she is going through in actual life. “It’s unbelievable. I really feel pissed off.”
In 2022, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit on the Fukuoka District Court docket saying the nationality regulation’s ban on twin nationality violates the equality clause of the Structure. Nonetheless, the district court docket dominated the regulation is constitutional in December.
Within the excessive court docket, she argued that the rejection of passport purposes, whatever the submitted paperwork, violates the Structure, and that the federal government’s failure to inform residents concerning the nationality-revoking a part of the regulation can also be unconstitutional.
Kondo, who was born and raised in Japan, spent almost 40 years working and elevating a household in the US, the place she grew to become a citizen in 2004.
She spent years touring forwards and backwards between the 2 nations — each of which she contemplate her residence — earlier than she was recognized as a twin citizen in 2017. This primary occurred at a passport workplace in Tokyo, the place her passport was confiscated and her utility for a renewal denied. Later, airport immigration officers seen that she was leaving Japan with an American passport that had no entry stamp.
Presently, Kondo holds solely an American passport and has not reapplied for her Japanese passport out of concern that her utility could be rejected once more. However she nonetheless maintains her Japanese household registry and has not obtained any communication from the federal government requesting her to formally resign certainly one of her nationalities.
Kondo returned to Japan in 2020 on the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and has been dwelling in Fukuoka since. She is fearful that she may not be capable to return to Japan if she leaves, and is now involved concerning the repercussions for overstaying whereas her citizenship standing stays unsure.