Must pay redress for publishing TRUTH resulting in suicide

[Taro Toporific]

Publisher must pay redress over suicide
The Japan Times / Friday, July 16, 2004
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling ordering Bungeishunju Ltd. to pay 9.2 million yen in damages to the family of an archaeologist who killed himself in 2001 because of reports in the publishing company's weekly magazine
Shukan Bunshun carried reports from January to March 2001 that suggested Kagawa had faked finds of stone tools in the Hijiridaki Cave in Honjo, Oita Prefecture, in 1962. Kagawa was then an archaeologist at Beppu University in the prefecture.
The 78-year-old professor emeritus at the university hanged himself at his home in March 2001, leaving a note saying he was killing himself to protest the articles.

[kamome]

Well, this pretty much guarantees that no publisher will want to expose the truth on any subject for fear of legal liability. This will further chill free speech in Japan.

[tomasurii]

Do decisions like this have precedential value in Jp courts? From what I know, the Japanese legal system is the perverted love child of the civil and common law systems.

[kamome]

Do decisions like this have precedential value in Jp courts? From what I know, the Japanese legal system is the perverted love child of the civil and common law systems.

Court decisions are preciously rare in Japan, so when one does exist on a particular point, it carries a lot of weight. The J-legal system is a civil law system, not a common law system, but court decisions still are very meaningful here.