There is a surprisingly long list of legal actions involving nuclear power in Japan
Demonstrators discuss the issues before a march protesting the operation of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. |
Demonstration against the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. |
Before any decision to go nuclear, Thailand should study the case histories of countries that have long been using nuclear energy. Japan has not had as rosy a path on the way to becoming one of the largest of nuclear operators in the world as those advocating nuclear power in Thailand would have us believe.
There is a long list of court cases. Nishio Baku, a co-director of the Citizen Nuclear Information Centre in Japan explains that some of the lawsuits demanding that construction or operation of a nuclear facility be stopped. The lawsuits are administrative cases, where the government is the defendant and the petitioner demands that the approval for the facility be annulled.
Others are civil court cases, where the company is the defendant and the petitioner demands that construction and/or operations be terminated.
However, there are also a number of cases in which citizens are the defendants. These might include cases in which anti-nuclear activists have been charged with illegal entry or violence at a nuclear site. In the case of criminal suits, the Public Prosecutor lays the charges.
According to Nishio, some cases are heard by a Summary Court, but the majority are heard by a District Court. In either case, if a party is dissatisfied with the decision, they may appeal to the regional High Court. If there is still dissatisfaction it is sometimes possible to take the matter to the Supreme Court, but this is only allowed under certain circumstances. These are: where there is a constitutional issue involved; where a particularly important law is involved; or where the decision goes against a Supreme Court precedent.
Some lawsuits go on for a long time. The Tokai II case has so far been the longest. It began in 1973 and reached a final conclusion in 2004, when the Supreme Court rejected the case.
A poster in town invites people to join the demonstration. |
Civil Cases
Recently civil suits have been the main type of litigation involving nuclear power plants. Most of the cases demand the termination of operations of a particular nuclear station, and have different and reasoning behind the demands. More details could be studied at: http://cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit104/nit104articles/nit104court.html and http://cnic.jp/english/news/newsflash/2006/shika30Mar06.html
The latest case is when the Kanazawa District Court upheld a suit for termination of operation of the Shika-2 reactor (ABWR 1,358 MW). The suit was filed by 135 plaintiffs from 16 prefectures in August 1999 and the decision was made on March 24, 2006.
Yukio Yamaguchi, another CNIC co-director, gave the history behind this case. "In 1988, 100 plaintiffs lodged a case against the Shika-1 reactor (540 MW BWR). Their case was rejected by the District Court in 1994. They appealed and the High Court rejected their demands in 1998. However, although they lost their case, they extracted an acknowledgement that nuclear power plants are a negative legacy for future generations. They appealed to the Supreme Court, but their case was rejected in 2000. The Shika-2 victory therefore came 18 years after the plaintiffs first lodged a case against the Shika nuclear power plant."
However, the Hokuriku Electric, the plant operator, has appealed to the High Court. As long as there is an appeal pending they can continue to operate the plant.
Another example of the litigation is the Fukushima II-3 case, which followed an accident involving a recirculation pump in 1989. The case was an attempt to stop the company from recommencing operations. It was claimed that pieces of metal had been left in the damaged reactor and components were simply patched up.
The Takahama action was an attempt to prevent reactor number 2 from being restarted after a routine inspection discovered problems in 46% of the pipes in the steam generator. The generator was subsequently replaced in its entirety. In the latter of these cases, despite rejecting the petitioners' challenge, the court warned of the danger of the pipes bursting. No appeal was lodged.
Nishio concluded that even in those cases where the residents/citizens have lost, they have managed to extract masses of useful documents from the power companies and the government.
"We should also not forget that the court cases, via the mass media, have drawn attention to the issues and thus helped to shape public opinion to become more critical of nuclear energy," he wrote in the newsletter Nuke Info Tokyo No. 104 (Jan-Feb 2005).
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