The trial is not the end all be all. The trial will be over, but the problems continue after the trial.

During this trial, we have repeatedly argued that the freedom to travel abroad is a constitutional right, that a country cannot arbitrarily take away this right, that politics and diplomacy cannot take priority over human rights, that travel to the entire world cannot be banned based on the circumstances of one country (entry ban), that Junpei Yasuda has reported on what is happening on the battlefield as a journalist, and that refusing to issue a passport to a journalist would violate his right to know what is happening in the world.

Unfortunately, the Tokyo High Court did not directly respond to our claims, but following the Tokyo District Court's ruling, the Tokyo High Court also recognized that the denial of Mr. Yasuda's passport was illegal and should be revoked. Both the government and we appealed the Tokyo High Court's ruling to the Supreme Court, but in September 2025, the Supreme Court decided not to accept the requests of either party, and the Tokyo High Court's ruling became final.

If the disposition is revoked, the passport application will return to a pending status, and the government will be obligated to reconsider Yasuda's passport application.

However, three months have already passed since the Supreme Court ruled that the refusal to issue the passport was illegal, but the government has still not issued Yasuda a passport. This is despite the fact that the five-year Turkish entry ban that the government cited as the reason for refusing to issue the passport has now expired and no longer exists. The government should issue the passport as soon as possible.

The real issues will become clear after the trial.

We may have to go to court again, so please continue to pay close attention.

On September 24, 2025, the Supreme Court's Third Petty Bench rejected Yasuda and the government's appeal and petition for acceptance of the appeal.

As a result of the above, the appeals court ruling that the refusal to issue a regular passport to Yasuda was illegal has been finalized, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will re-examine Yasuda's passport application.

On the other hand, Yasuda's argument that Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Act itself violates the Constitution was not accepted.

We would like to provide a detailed report separately.

On January 30, 2025, the 8th Civil Division of the Tokyo High Court handed down its appellate judgment in this case.

The ruling dismissed the appeals of both the first-instance plaintiff and the first-instance defendant, and upheld the original ruling that the refusal to issue a passport to Yasuda was illegal.

However, both parties appealed. The plaintiff's appeal statement and other documents are available in the litigation materials section.

The second oral argument hearing for this appeal was held on October 1, 2024, in Courtroom 101 of the Tokyo High Court.

At the hearing, the plaintiff in the first instance presented preparatory documents (1) to (4), and the defendant in the first instance presented preparatory document (1).

The above documents can be found in the lawsuit documents section.

The court rejected the first-instance plaintiff's request to call witnesses and set the judgment date for January 30, 2025 at 4:00 p.m. (Tokyo High Court, Courtroom 101).

The first oral argument hearing of the appeal trial was held at 1:40 p.m. on July 16, 2024 in Courtroom 101 of the Tokyo High Court.

At the hearing, the grounds for appeal and the answer to appeal submitted by both the plaintiff of the first instance (Mr. Yasuda) and the defendant of the first instance (the government) were presented.

After that, Mr. Yasuda himself and the plaintiff's attorney for the first instance made statements.

The contents of the opinion statement will be published in the litigation documents section, so please take a look. .

Regarding future progress, the defendant at first instance will submit a rebuttal to the plaintiff at first instance's appeal brief, and the plaintiff at first instance will make its arguments based on the opinion of a constitutional scholar and will also make a request to examine witnesses.

The next hearing has been set for October 1, 2024 at 10:40 a.m. (Tokyo High Court, Courtroom 101).

In addition, CALL4 conducted the "First Time Court Observation Tour Vol. 10" regarding this case. Thank you very much.

1. Regarding the First-Instance Judgment

The first instance ruling was handed down on January 25, 2024, and the decision not to issue a regular passport to Yasuda was set aside as illegal and amounted to an abuse or deviation from the Minister of Foreign Affairs' discretionary power.

On the other hand, Yasuda's request to make it mandatory to issue a regular passport was not accepted, and the court ruled that Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Act was constitutional. As a result, the issue of the Passport Act, which allows the Minister of Foreign Affairs to arbitrarily refuse to issue a regular passport on the grounds of refusing entry from a certain country, remains unresolved.

On February 7 of the same year, Yasuda appealed the decision and awaited the decision of the appellate court. The defendant (the government) also appealed the first instance ruling on the same day.

2. Request for donations for the appeal trial

At the first hearing stage, it was possible to use crowdfunding to request the writing of opinions etc. from Tomohiko Tatsumi (administrative law researcher) and Hiroki Abe (international human rights law researcher).

We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who donated.

In the appeal hearing, we plan to submit new opinions by constitutional scholars to prove that Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Law is unconstitutional. In addition, in response to the defendant (the state) filing an appeal, we plan to increase the number of our legal team and conduct defense activities with a more robust system.

However, in order to carry out the above-mentioned legal activities, we expect to need a total of approximately 1 million yen, but we do not currently have sufficient funds and would like to ask for new donations.

Your donations will be used to cover the costs of preparing a new opinion and legal fees.

If Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Act is left unrevised, the current situation will not change, as not only journalists but various other people will remain at risk of having their freedom of movement arbitrarily deprived, and this will have a chilling effect on the freedom of overseas travel.

We would like to work together with you to protect the freedom of movement for all people, so we appreciate your support and cooperation.

1. Appeal by both parties

The first instance ruling was handed down on January 25, 2024, and the decision not to issue a regular passport to Yasuda was set aside as illegal and amounted to an abuse or deviation from the Minister of Foreign Affairs' discretionary power.

On the other hand, Yasuda's request to make it mandatory to issue a regular passport was not accepted, and the court ruled that Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Act was constitutional. As a result, the issue of the Passport Act, which allows the Minister of Foreign Affairs to arbitrarily refuse to issue a regular passport on the grounds of refusing entry from a certain country, remains unresolved.

On February 7 of the same year, Yasuda appealed the decision and awaited the decision of the appellate court. The defendant (the government) also appealed the first instance ruling on the same day.

2. Statement of grounds for appeal

Both Mr. Yasuda and the government have now submitted their reasons for appeal.

The appeal statement has been uploaded to the litigation documents section, so please take a look.

3. Progress of the appeal trial

This case was pending at the 8th Civil Division of the Tokyo High Court.

At this time, no oral argument date has been set, but we will provide an update as soon as there are any further developments.

At 15:00 on January 25, 2024, the judgment in this case was handed down in Courtroom No. 703 of the Tokyo District Court.

The court ruled that the decision to not issue a passport to Mr. Yasuda was illegal as it was a deviation or abuse of the discretionary authority of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and rescinded the decision to not issue a passport. On the other hand, the court did not approve Mr. Yasuda's request for the issuance of a regular passport or his claim for damages under the National Reparations Act.

The reasons for the judgment are generally as follows.

1. Is there a fact that Mr. Yasuda was banned from entering Turkey for five years?

(Does it fall under the grounds for refusal of passport issuance in Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Act?)

The court recognized the credibility of a document dated February 13, 2019 stating that the Turkish government had reported to the Japanese government that Mr. Yasuda was subject to a five-year entry ban, and the confirmed the existence of.

Until he left Turkey, Mr. Yasuda had not been notified of any entry ban or other measures.In fact, the Turkish government's Minister of Industry and Technology had been welcoming Mr. Yasuda by asking him to meet with him after his release. However, this claim was not accepted.

2 Does Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Act violate the latter part of Article 13 of the Constitution and Article 22, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution?

The court believes that the freedom to travel abroad is not only limited to economic freedom, but is also connected to personal freedom, and is an opportunity for individuals to develop their own personality and participate in and contribute to will-formation in a democratic society. The court held that restrictions on the freedom to travel abroad are not permissible unless they can be said to be reasonable and to the extent necessary and unavoidable, as they also have the aspect of mental freedom.

Regarding the legislative purpose of Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Act, in light of the discussions in the legislature at the time of enactment of the Passport Act and the revision history of the Act, the Passport Act is protected by Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Act. The international trust envisions a ``bilateral relationship of trust'' between Japan and a country that has refused entry to certain travelers. In this regard, the defendant argued that the purpose of the same paragraph was to maintain international legal order based on multilateral relations and maintain relationships of trust in the international community, but this was not adopted.

However, the court held that the country that had denied entry to a particular traveler had stated, ``If Japan allows the person concerned to travel to a related country that affects the interests of the country that the country was trying to protect by banning the person from entering the country.'' The country's interests are likely to be harmed, and as a result, the relationship of trust between the country and Japan will be damaged.'' It is reasonable to restrict travel, including to related countries that have an impact on Japan, and the decision as to whether the relationship of trust between Japan and the other country will be harmed must be left to the discretion of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The court determined that the provisions of Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Act are constitutional as they are within reasonable and necessary limits.

3. Is this disposition of non-issuance unconstitutional or illegal?

Regarding the legality of specific passport issuance refusals, the court held that the purpose of Article 13, Paragraph 1, Item 1 of the Passport Act is to protect the relationship of trust between two countries, and that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, etc. Refusing a passport in a manner that restricts a person who has been banned from entering a country from traveling to areas where there is no possibility of damaging the bilateral relationship of trust between that country and Japan, It violates the purpose of Item 1 and is not permissible.''

On top of that, Mr. Yasuda's purpose in entering Syria in 2012 was to report on conflict areas, and the content of his research was valuable, so he decided to travel to areas other than Turkey and countries adjacent to Turkey. The court determined that even if travel was allowed, the relationship of trust between Japan and Turkey would not be damaged, and the decision to not issue the documents was deemed unconstitutional and illegal.

I will omit the description of the remaining points of contention.

Please see the full text of the judgment, which is posted in the litigation materials section.

Thank you for your continued attention.

At 11:00 a.m. on March 2, 2023, the 14th Oral Argument Date was held at Courtroom 703 of the Tokyo District Court.

I would like to report as follows, including written exchanges up to the deadline.

1 Written communication

Prior to this date, the defendant filed a brief (8) stating a counterargument to the "Plaint for Extension of Complaint" filed by the plaintiff before the previous date.

Plaintiffs have filed Plaintiffs' 13th and 14th Briefs. Each document is an allegation document stating a rebuttal to the defendant's brief (8).

Regarding the plaintiff's request for damages based on Article 1, Paragraph 1 of the National Compensation Law, based on the premise that the non-issuance of passports was illegal, the defendant stated in brief (8) that the non-issuance of passports Based on the time when the plaintiff was notified of the disposition, the claim for damages was extinguished due to the statute of limitations. Regarding this point, the 14th Preparatory Document states that the starting point for calculating the statute of limitations should be (1) the point at which the illegality of the non-issuance disposition (administrative disposition) is determined, rather than the time when the non-issuance disposition is announced. However, (2) considering that the plaintiff's freedom to travel overseas continues to be infringed due to the disposition of non-issuance, we add a counterargument that it should be considered that the statute of limitations has not progressed. (Furthermore, after this date, the plaintiff filed a further 15th brief to argue against the defendant's use of the statute of limitations.)

The thirteenth brief is to answer the matters requested by the defendant to explain on the previous date.

In addition, the plaintiff submitted a written correction of the statement of evidence, and identified the person to be questioned as a witness requested by the plaintiff as the Director of the Passport Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time of the non-issuance disposition.

2 Exchanges on the due date

On this date, the aforementioned briefs and documentary evidence were formally submitted.

Regarding the adoption of personal evidence, the plaintiff's attorney stated in the defendant's brief (8) that the presence or absence of the plaintiff's deportation from Turkey and the background, etc., were not relevant to the issue. He argued that this was an important background situation, and that the decision to accept or reject the testimony should not be made without clarifying this point.

However, the court stated that it was not considering recreating an issue summary table, etc. for this case, and that the time had come to decide whether or not to adopt testimony. He said he would reserve the right to take any witnesses he requested.

The plaintiff's attorney countered the court's order of litigation, but did not overturn the above judgment.

The next date has been set for 13:30 on June 20, 2023 (Tokyo District Court No. 703).

At the next hearing, the plaintiff himself will be questioned.

At 10:30 a.m. on December 20, 2022, the 13th Oral Argument Date was held at Courtroom 703 of the Tokyo District Court.

I will report as follows, including written exchanges up to the deadline.

1 Written exchange

Prior to this date, Plaintiff filed an "Expanded Statement of Claim" and Plaintiff's Twelfth Brief.

In the petition for extension of claim, the plaintiff newly seeks damages from the government on the grounds that the act of the Minister of Foreign Affairs who refused to issue ordinary passports is illegal in light of Article 1, Paragraph 1 of the National Compensation Law. It is a document that clarifies that the claim will be added.

Plaintiff's 12th Preparatory Document points out that (1) the defendant has proceeded with the lawsuit without substantively responding to the matters requested by the plaintiff and the court, and (2) once again, the disposition of non-issue It alleges that it was done in deviance and abuse of the discretionary power granted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Regarding point (2), the defendant asked the plaintiff to examine the witnesses of the persons who were involved in the judgment of non-issuance of this case. argued that there is no relevance to the issue (“October 7, 2022 “October 7, 2022 Opinion on 'Outline of Plaintiff's Verification Plan'”). In this regard, the plaintiff points out that it is clear that the background and reasons for the immigration ban are circumstances that should be considered when issuing ordinary passports.

Exchange on two dates

At the beginning of the session, the defendant gave the following explanation regarding the issue of Judge Shigeru Haruna, whom I met as the presiding judge in this case, becoming director of the Litigation Bureau and assuming a position that could be called an agent of the defendant (government). did.

“Generally speaking, the legal profession operates in accordance with the objective discipline of law, and one of its characteristics is that it fulfills its responsibilities regardless of whether it is a judge, public prosecutor, or lawyer. Therefore, even if a judge who was in charge of a lawsuit in which the government is a party, etc. is transferred to the Director of the Litigation Bureau and becomes involved in the lawsuit, there will not immediately be a problem. However, in carrying out lawsuits in which the government is a party, etc., in order to avoid doubts about the fairness of the trial, the neutrality of duties, and the fair performance of the lawsuits, As a result, the director of the Litigation Bureau does not personally make decisions on lawsuits that he was previously in charge of as presiding judge. is not involved in

In addition, the defendant argued that the grounds supporting the above operation were the proviso of Article 13 of the Regulations for Handling Administrative Documents of the Ministry of Justice, and Judge Haruna was appointed Director of the Litigation Bureau.

He also said he was not involved in the case from the beginning .

According to the Ministry of Justice Administrative Document Handling Regulations, it is stipulated as follows.

(Matters requiring approval by the head of the department or higher and the person making the decision)

Article 13

Approved items and authorizers that require the approval of the head of the department or above are as specified in Appended Table 1. However, with regard to administrative documents for which a person other than the Minister is the authorizing person pursuant to the same table, this shall not preclude the decision by the higher-ranking person, if there are special circumstances.

Therefore, the plaintiff's attorney said, ``According to the rules, the 'higher-ranking person' makes the settlement only 'when there are special circumstances' and 'when there is no hindrance', so it is not a provision that is automatically applied. , It is necessary to make a judgment ``when there are special circumstances''.In addition, the chief cabinet secretary is not a ``high-ranking person'' of the director of the Litigation Bureau.Is this ``judgment'' really made on the day of the personnel change? When I asked the question, the defendant (country) only answered, "I was not involved."

After that, the above-mentioned "Expansion of Complaint," Plaintiff's Twelfth Brief, was formally filed.

The court instructed the defendant to make a counterargument to the "Written Petition for Extension of Action, "

I asked to clarify whether the fruit was considered .

The next date has been set for March 2, 2023 at 11:00 (Tokyo District Court No. 703 ).