2003 JAPAN LAW: DISABILITY PENSIONS
Keywords: Pensions, Disabled Rights, Voting Rights, Absentee Ballots, Koreans
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved Attorney Roderick H. Seeman
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A group of Korean residents also had their case rejected by the Kyoto District Court in their attempt to demand 175 million yen in damages and retroactive benefits due to their rejection under the Disability Pensions scheme by the Kyoto prefectural government, which administers the scheme in Kyoto. The law for disability pensions was revised in 1982 to actually permit non-Japanese to join. At the same time however, people over 20 years of age in 1982 were not permitted to join. The plaintiffs fell in that category. In 1997 the plaintiffs asked the prefectural government to give them the pensions. This was rejected. It is not clear, and not likely, that between 1982 and 1997 the plaintiffs had been paying into the pension scheme. The plaintiffs said there had been a violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of equality before the law, as well as a violation of the UN agreements prohibiting discrimination based on nationality.