No Welfare for Foreigners – Supreme Court

[Coligny]

Pretty sure that if accent and cultural background discrimination was so strong in US firms, their payroll would look like Klan meeting and it will show in the stats. Sure there are anecdotal reports of discriminations, but as the meme said... Plural of anecdote is not data...

In japan an all nationnal workforce is the norm... Discrimination can hide in plain sight.

Also, don't the US have minimum quotas of employees to have in certain categories ? Like retards, darkies or females ?

[Russell]

Think you’ve got rights as a foreigner in Japan? Well, it’s complicated

If you imagine paying taxes in Japan entitles you to welfare, you may want to take a seat

“Welfare ruling stuns foreigners.” That was the headline to The Japan Times On Sunday’s July 20 lead story about the Supreme Court’s ruling a couple of days earlier that non-Japanese residents do not have a right to access the nation’s welfare system.

I’m a foreigner, but the only thing that surprised me was the headline. To be honest, I don’t know how anyone who has been paying attention could have expected the court to rule any other way.

[...]

Whether non-Japanese human beings get any [...] rights under the Constitution — including the “right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living” under Article 25 (the constitutional basis for the welfare system) — has been the subject of some debate, as well as constitutional litigation. The short answer is “yes but no”: “Yes” as in “Non-Japanese are generally entitled to the same constitutional protections as Japanese people in principle,” but “No” as in “I cannot think of a single instance where a non-Japanese person has been granted relief by the Supreme Court in a specific case, even though the court may have recited the general principle before finding it doesn’t apply in this case.”

(I refer to this decisional dichotomy as “kittens-are-cute jurisprudence” since it involves making a broad statement of principle that most people find agreeable (“Generally speaking, kittens are cute”) while denying relief in the case at bar (“But, unfortunately, this particular kitten is not”)).

[...]

So again, nothing about the Supreme Court’s decision surprised me. In fact, I found it depressing for a different reason. According to the lower court, the 82-year-old Chinese plaintiff was not penniless; she was married and had money in the bank and income-producing property. Unfortunately, her husband also had dementia, for which he was hospitalized. His younger brother moved into the house and was physically abusive and seized control of the bank books and hanko seals.

Driven from her home, she lacked the resources to do things such as have herself declared her husband’s legal guardian, which would have required her to pay someone to evaluate his mental state. Applying for welfare may have been the only way for her to protect her inalienable rights to marital property and spousal support payments.

Yet where were the police and other tax-funded institutions that should have been there to help regardless of her nationality, simply because she was being subject to violence and the wrongful deprivation of her property rights? If anything, the case points to a much broader failure of the social safety net — one that potentially affects everybody.

More

I cherry-picked the juicy parts of the article. It is much longer than quoted here, but it is definitely worth a read.

[wagyl]

Good to see an article that goes that little bit deeper. Thanks for linking that Russell. I'm still surprised that the applicant's nationality became the major issue here, since it quite obviously began with a very different issue.

[omae mona]

Colin Jones' pieces in the JT are just about the only thing I've found worthwhile there in the last few years. And this was one of his really good ones. Thanks for the link.

Agreed with wagyl... the fact that somebody can effectively deprive you of your property by physically invading your home and taking your hanko, and yet the police seem not to have stepped in (because it was a family member?), if this is true, is really astounding.

[Coligny]

Really, there was still some people not knowing that "hanko=full power" ?
Gonna shit their pants when they discover the power of those little bank notebooks...

[matsuki]

In some cases, one doesn't even need a hanko...ask IPU how his bank account fared during his divorce...

The whole "because family" is a two way street though, over the years I've been here, I watched one of my friend's best friends basically go from a great, intelligent kid into a chinpira....all because his father was arrested for some sort of theft. "Because Japan" he was forced to withdraw from school, baseball, etc. (His father's shame is his shame?) Working shitty baitos here and there, it only took a couple years to get picked up by the local yaks and take a different path in life.

[Coligny]

Should have done like me...

Lose the access code of his online banking account...

(was not exactly done on purpose though... those asshole forced me to change the password... and forced a ridiculous 6 -number only- limit that got me so pissed off that I didn't write it back before I forgot it...)

[matsuki]

Online? All she had to do was walk into the bank and say she's the wife....IPU is a bit more forgiving than me though. I would have immediately filed a claim/police report/etc.

[Coligny]

Online? All she had to do was walk into the bank and say she's the wife....IPU is a bit more forgiving than me though. I would have immediately filed a claim/police report/etc.

Nah, it's our French bank accounts... There is no more physical place to go since we/I are expat...

[matsuki]

Online? All she had to do was walk into the bank and say she's the wife....IPU is a bit more forgiving than me though. I would have immediately filed a claim/police report/etc.

Nah, it's our French bank accounts... There is no more physical place to go since we/I are expat...

I guess that's a better idea? But you said "our"....which is quite different than a separate account without the wife's name.

[Mike Oxlong]

Not specifically Japan related, but a good article on immigration from The Atlantic.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... _page=true

[Coligny]

Not specifically Japan related, but a good article on immigration from The Atlantic.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... _page=true

I's say more scary than anything else...

Workers in the developing world can be much more productive when they are not locked in places with crumbled infrastructure, poor academic institutions, and mass corruption.

That sound like Reagan's "magic of the market" speech... Something done with the workers benefit for excuse but the shareholders profit for real goal...

[wangta]

Not specifically Japan related, but a good article on immigration from The Atlantic.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internationa ... _page=true

Thanks for that link. I'm in two minds about the open borders argument. I like the idea of open borders theoretically and they have existed at various times in various countries in history.

The problem with doing it now is that it is not reciprocal. People such as myself whose ancestors came from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and European countries have no right of return to their ancestral lands unless their grandparents were born there, or in the case of some countries, if their parents' grandparents who were born there did some form of registration with the authorities of the old country. In the case of Irish in Oz, few of our great grandparents knew they could register their family and pass on the citizesnhip to their descendants. That information was not available to most.

For me, open borders means just that - worldwide. At present it more or less is open borders in western countries as 'asylum seekers' have for a long time in the UK and Europe gone there because they want a first world lifestyle complete with generous free money in some countries - talking about the economic 'asylum seekers' here. They have also done this in considerable numbers in Oz since around 2008 with the change of govt from conservative to labour. Only recently has logic prevailed and one of the last acts of the old Labor Govt (which was defeated anyway in the election)was to legislate that anybody who arrives by boat to Australia will never be re-settled here.

Others who come to Oz with genuine intent to migrate here have to buy a visa, pass many checks and have a profession or skill that at least can be useable in Oz - though with our high youth and 45 yrs plus unemployment, and the fact that around 380,000 new jobs in Oz in recent years have gone to non citizens and non permanent residents, I personally reject the whole pseudo Keynesian idea that more people equals more growth in jobs for everybody. At the moment too many services and freebies are being over-utilised by relative newcomers or newcomers who don't pay for them.

Open borders should mean the right of return for everyone to their ancestors' homelands - not just the right to go to the UK for somebody who lives in a former British colony in central Asia or Africa or wherever and has no roots in England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. Reciprocity should be the principle and practice for everywhere - if people from Central Asia, the Middle East, East Asia, Africa, etc want open borders into western culture countries then their own countries need to also accommodate non natives.

I've often heard, including from politically correct white people, that the world has the right to residency and citizenship in the UK because of British colonialism. It never occurs to them, sometimes because they are incredibly ignorant of history, that one of the worst treated countries under British colonialism for more than 600 years was Ireland. British punishment of Irish seeking independence including exporting a number of them as slaves to the Caribbean as well as policies that led to mass starvation.

Yet the Irish diaspora around the world has no right of residency in the UK and a very limited right of return to the Irish homeland that most of them have never heard of and so could not utilise. On the same note, Italian and Hungarian people never had any right to live in Austria prior to the European Union and their countries are two of a number colonised by the Austro-Hungarian Empire which imposed a repressive, exploitative regime.

Open borders need to be just that. All in or it doesn't happen. The only exceptions should be where there are people who have been living in isolation from the world and their existence is fragile such as in isolated parts of South America or Africa, or where the ecosystem is fragile or there are other exceptional circumstances and the indigenous peoples know how to live in that environment.

[Russell]

Debate on foreigner voting rights

The recurring debate over how much of a say non-Japanese residents should have in the country’s political process is flaring up once again, amid Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s drive to attract more foreign workers to the country’s shores ahead of the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2020.

In the latest controversial move, Abe’s Cabinet discouraged local governments from passing an ordinance that would give non-Japanese residents a right to vote in municipal referendums.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party had previously distributed a brochure in 2011 urging its local chapters not to pass such an ordinance, after party members became alarmed at the increasing number of municipalities across the country that had introduced — on a permanent basis — non-Japanese-inclusive polling systems as a means of reflecting the public will.

The LDP said it had advised its prefectural chapters in June once again to abide by that earlier recommendation.

The ruling party says that more inclusive local-level voting rights give non-Japanese citizens an unduly generous say in the nation’s politics, and point out that this may violate the Constitution by undermining the principle of sovereignty of the Japanese people.

“(This may be happening) at local levels, but there is a financial burden shouldered by the central government, and we have to consider the interest of Japanese taxpayers across the country,” said LDP Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba last month. “I do not think local municipalities can do whatever they want.”

Yes, because the LDP always takes into account the best interests of the Japanese tax payers. That's why Japan has such a debilitating high debt.

The Japanese Constitution and the Local Autonomy Act allows referendums for several uses. Article 95 of the Constitution, for example, prohibits the Diet from passing laws affecting a particular municipality unless the majority of its residents express support via a referendum. The Local Autonomy Act, meanwhile, gives Japanese citizens the right to recall public officials through a poll.

An increasing number of municipalities are now making use of local statutes to hold votes on critical issues that affect their local populations.

While the results of these local votes are not legally binding, some LDP members and academics see them as legally problematic because they recognize foreigners, including Zainichi ethnic Korean residents, as eligible voters in local referendums.

Opponents of expanded voting rights say that contradicts stipulations in the Constitution stating that only Japanese nationals above 20 — a category which includes naturalized citizens — have the right to vote in local and national elections, as well as some referendums.

“An ordinance should be within the scope of the Constitution and law, but some local communities are trying to reinterpret those laws via their ordinances, violating the Constitution,” said Akira Momochi, a Nihon University professor specializing in Constitutional law.

The former town of Maibara in Shiga Prefecture became the first local municipality to allow permanent foreign residents over the age of 20 to vote in a referendum on whether the town should merge with adjacent towns in 2002.

According to the Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan), some 200 municipalities granted non-Japanese citizens the right to vote in local polls around that time, as the central government pushed smaller towns to merge in a bid to streamline local governments.

And while many of those polls were one-time, single-issue affairs, some municipalities now allow foreign nationals who are permanent residents to vote whenever a referendum is put on the table.

The city of Kawasaki, for example, passed a municipal ordinance in 2009 giving residents over the age of 18, including non-Japanese who have lived in the city for more than three years, voting rights.

While Kawasaki has yet to put a statute to the vote, Momochi and other critics are concerned that foreigners in the city and others across the country could become critical swing voters in highly politicized matters such as the relocation of military bases or the reactivation of nuclear power plants.

“Supporters of this movement are trying to allow foreigners to have a larger say in political processes little by little, as they understand it is hard to give foreigners suffrage in Japan,” he said. “But foreigners could vote against the Japanese interest.”

More

The more I read this statement, the more it puzzles me. What do they actually mean by that, foreigners voting against the Japanese interest? Would a Japanese voting in the same way as a foreigner then also vote against the Japanese interest? And would all foreigners vote the same? I bet not, so that would mean that there would also be foreigners voting for the Japanese interest.

But what does that mean, "Japanese interest"? Does it mean the interests of some elite group within the LDP that identifies themselves as the champions of Japanese interests?

And wouldn't Japan be in a less fiscally dire strait if only foreigners would have had more influence in electing fiscally responsible politicians into power?

[matsuki]

we have to consider the interest of Japanese taxpayers across the country

[Coligny]

By making it an issue of us against them, they make it simple for Joe Tanaka to "choose" side without having to scare the peanut he got for brain into any kind of activity. Local version of "you are wiz us, or wiz the terrurists"

[Takechanpoo]

The more I read this statement, the more it puzzles me. What do they actually mean by that, foreigners voting against the Japanese interest? Would a Japanese voting in the same way as a foreigner then also vote against the Japanese interest? And would all foreigners vote the same? I bet not, so that would mean that there would also be foreigners voting for the Japanese interest.

But what does that mean, "Japanese interest"? Does it mean the interests of some elite group within the LDP that identifies themselves as the champions of Japanese interests?

And wouldn't Japan be in a less fiscally dire strait if only foreigners would have had more influence in electing fiscally responsible politicians into power?

if japan admit dual nationality and foreingers voting, ching chong chinese will vote to kick US bases out and snatch Okinawa out of japan.
you damn gaijin dudes should understand the political reason peculiar to japan. europe and america dont have china next to them

[Coligny]

Only one step saner the Lizard people takeover conspiramacy theeries... Would a local vote even matter against a nationnal policy issue ?

Could make for a ScyFy channel production though... But after my Fema-Rape-Death camp miniserie gets done...

[matsuki]

The more I read this statement, the more it puzzles me. What do they actually mean by that, foreigners voting against the Japanese interest? Would a Japanese voting in the same way as a foreigner then also vote against the Japanese interest? And would all foreigners vote the same? I bet not, so that would mean that there would also be foreigners voting for the Japanese interest.

But what does that mean, "Japanese interest"? Does it mean the interests of some elite group within the LDP that identifies themselves as the champions of Japanese interests?

And wouldn't Japan be in a less fiscally dire strait if only foreigners would have had more influence in electing fiscally responsible politicians into power?

if japan admit dual nationality and foreingers voting, ching chong chinese will vote to kick US bases out and snatch Okinawa out of japan.
you damn gaijin dudes should understand the political reason peculiar to japan. europe and america dont have china next to them

Most of the "ching chong chinese" I know living here have already naturalized, though I doubt any of them, like many Japanese their age, have ever exercised their right to vote.

[Yokohammer]

The paranoid seem to forget that voting is sort of a multiple choice thing.

It's not like subversive foreigners could just up and vote to give the Senkakus to China or something like that.

It might be possible for foreigners to support someone standing for election that has views favourable to their situation, but that goes for everyone else as well. And we're talking about around 2% of the population at most.

[Russell]

The paranoid seem to forget that voting is sort of a multiple choice thing.

It's not like subversive foreigners could just up and vote to give the Senkakus to China or something like that.

It might be possible for foreigners to support someone standing for election that has views favourable to their situation, but that goes for everyone else as well. And we're talking about around 2% of the population at most.

But then again, if all them forrunners live in Tottori, their voting power already becomes almost 5 times that.

Combined with the low rates at which people turn up at election booths (and assuming 100% of the forrunners will vote), we are talking about a voting power of 20% of the population.

Maybe.

[Yokohammer]

And now this:

Conservative party to submit bill halting welfare for needy foreigners

Jisedai no To (Party for Future Generations) said Tuesday it plans to submit a revised bill to the extraordinary Diet session this fall to exclude poverty-stricken non-Japanese residents from receiving welfare benefits.

The opposition party, launched this month by conservative lawmakers including former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, said the public assistance law should be revised in accordance with the recent landmark ruling by the Supreme Court that permanent residents of Japan are not entitled to welfare benefits for financially needy people.

“Based on the ruling, it is (our duty) to revise the public assistance law,” Hiroshi Yamada, the secretary-general of the party, told a news conference in Tokyo.

Regardless of whether foreign residents pay taxes in Japan or not, the public assistance law is only for “Japanese nationals,” he stressed. Another law should be created to deal with foreigners, he said.

Well that takes "at the discretion of the local government ... on a humanitarian basis" out of the equation completely.
Ishihara and his cronies strike again, going to whatever lengths they can to erect barriers between Japan and rest of the world.

Just ignoring the constitutional/legal aspects for a moment, let me tell you how this makes me feel.

Every time something like this happens I feel a little less connected to the country that I pretty much grew up in and have spent the majority of my adult life in. I feel a little less accepted and therefore less accepting towards it, even though I know the people who are causing me to feel that way might only be a small but vocal and powerful minority. I feel a little less respected, and therefore a little less inclined to respect it.

This is what happens, to me and I'm sure to most others who are in a similar situation, and that feeling will remain whether the bill passes into law or not. Little by little the wedge is driven, with the ultimate result being a crippling loss of trust.

This makes me sad.

[Russell]

Hammer, you describe that feeling very well.

But let's first see whether it passes into law. It's not as if we could expect something positive from Ishihara in the first place.

The conservative opposition party, headed by Takeo Hiranuma, was officially established on Aug. 1 after breaking from Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party). Its basic policies, unveiled in July, include denying non-Japanese residents the right to vote in national or local elections as well as introducing stricter standards for foreigners to obtain citizenship.

That sounds like an interesting program to revitalize the nation...

[Yokohammer]

If Ishihara was the only problem I could simply put it down to one deranged individual, but unfortunately it's a little more widespread than that. Hiranuma is a racist c*nt too. He's the guy that dismissed Ren Ho as irrelevant because she's "not a true Japanese anyway" several years ago when she said or did something he didn't like. And that's sort of the point: I didn't even have to look that up. I just know it because things like that leave an indelible impression that will never, ever go away no matter how many apologies are offered or reparations are made. I might be able to accept an apology and treat the giver with a modicum of public respect, but the incident will never be forgotten and trust will never be fully restored.

[Samurai_Jerk]

If Ishihara was the only problem I could simply put it down to one deranged individual, but unfortunately it's a little more widespread than that. Hiranuma is a racist c*nt too. He's the guy that dismissed Ren Ho as irrelevant because she's "not a true Japanese anyway" several years ago when she said or did something he didn't like. And that's sort of the point: I didn't even have to look that up. I just know it because things like that leave an indelible impression that will never, ever go away no matter how many apologies are offered or reparations are made. I might be able to accept an apology and treat the giver with a modicum of public respect, but the incident will never be forgotten and trust will never be fully restored.

Why not naturalize?

[Russell]

Why not naturalize?

Ishihara and co. want to make that more difficult too.

And who would want to naturalize if one does not feel accepted in the first place?

[Yokohammer]

Why not naturalize?

As I think I've mentioned elsewhere, this is something I have considered seriously. I still haven't eliminated it as a possibility, but for all the good reasons I can think of to naturalise (many of them neatly listed by our friend Havill), I keep running into an equally persuasive list of reasons not to. General xenophobic and exclusionist tendencies are going to bug the crap out of me regardless of nationality. Maybe I'm just taking it too seriously ... I'll only be around for a couple or three more decades anyway ... but for me it is an extremely difficult decision.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Why not naturalize?

Ishihara and co. want to make that more difficult too.

And who would want to naturalize if one does not feel accepted in the first place?

Why live somewhere you don't feel accepted?

[Samurai_Jerk]

Why not naturalize?

As I think I've mentioned elsewhere, this is something I have considered seriously. I still haven't eliminated it as a possibility, but for all the good reasons I can think of to naturalise (many of them neatly listed by our friend Havill), I keep running into an equally persuasive list of reasons not to. General xenophobic and exclusionist tendencies are going to bug the crap out of me regardless of nationality. Maybe I'm just taking it too seriously ... I'll only be around for a couple or at the most three more decades anyway ... but for me it is an extremely difficult decision.

I get it and I'm not saying that I agree with the idea of excluding foreigners from welfare. Especially not permanent residents, special or otherwise. However, by choosing not to become a citizen you have to accept that you'll never have the full rights of a Japanese national and the rights you do have can change for better or for worse with less controversy and push back than taking the rights away from citizens.

I agree with Russell that it's better to wait and see if this proposal actually has any legs before getting all depressed about our lot as foreigners in Japan. There are always going to be racist pricks not matter how much more enlightened society as a whole becomes.

[Yokohammer]

I get it and I'm not saying that I agree with the idea of excluding foreigners from welfare. Especially not permanent residents, special or otherwise. However, by choosing not to become a citizen you have to accept that you'll never have the full rights of a Japanese national and the rights you do have can change for better or for worse with less controversy and push back than taking the rights away from citizens.

Understood and agreed. This is all a part of the thinking process that has me in sort of a stalemate.

There are always going to be racist pricks not matter how much more enlightened society as a whole becomes.

And they're everywhere too ... not just in Japan. My own country has its share, which of course adds to the conundrum.

I guess the bottom line is that if I'm going to be a citizen of somewhere, I want to be able to wear the flag with pride. It's either that or become an activist and try to change things ... but ugh, my "predecessor" is not setting a very good example, and I don't think I have the time or energy for that shit anyway.