Asia Centre

The ruling on “the incident of the second public primary school”

In March 2000, the principal of the primary school concerned held the first ceremony subsequent to the vote and the entry into force, in August 1999, of the law on the anthem and the flag. He had taken the decision to raise the flag, and a police contingent had been put in place in anticipation of events possibly getting out of hand, but the teachers found themselves locked out of the school. After the ceremony, the children and their families complained to the principal. The episode could well have been without any follow-up, but the Sankei of April 5^th carried the sensational headline, “Thirty children let down the flag”. The education board and local assembly took charge of the matter. The main teachers were given a rebuke on account of their collective protest to the principal before the ceremony. The teachers then instituted proceedings calling for this reprimand to be quashed.

The tribunal judged that the teachers should have obeyed the principal. What is the significance of this ruling? The dispute did not oppose the teachers and the principal over the issue of the flag-raising. The teachers had requested that they be allowed to wear a pale blue “peace ribbon” during the ceremony, without any writing on it. In consequence, the rebuke did not reprimand the teachers’ behaviour in itself, but rather their attitude which was opposed to the raising of the flag. What remains in abeyance is the freedom of conscience and thought of the teachers, and the capacity of the justice system to protect    their basic rights.

The “preventive case of opposition to the flag and anthem”

In June 2003, after Ishihara Shintarô’s reelection as governor of Tôkyô, an office of ceremonies marking the beginning and end of the year in public schools was set up within the education board of the city of Tôkyô. Shortly thereafter, memorandum 10.23 was circulated for the attention of the teaching staff, making it compulsory for everyone ”at ceremonies, to turn towards the flag raised to the appointed spot, and to sing the national anthem in unison”.

Attitudes to the national flag and the national anthem express a national vision. It must be remembered, however, that our flag and anthem did not change after the defeat, and their history is intimately bound up with that of imperialism with which the present Constitution broke. They are also symbols of the thinking of the imperial nation, militarism, the anti-foreign movement and absolutism. A questionable historical view is being expressed by means of these symbols.

Ruling 9.21 of the 36^th chamber of the civil court came out of a lawsuit instigated preventively by 401 teachers, in the absence of any action causing them actual harm. The tribunal allowed that individual thinking in relation to the flag and the national anthem did fall under the category of freedom of opinion guaranteed by article 19 of the Constitution. The ruling stipulates that ”the undeniable, historical truth is that our country’s flag and anthem were an element of imperialist and militarist thought from the Meiji period until the Second World War; even today, some of our fellow countrymen consider that, from a religious or political perspective, the flag and the anthem are not neutral in terms of values”. The ruling found that memorandum 10.23 and the order based on it to be upstanding during the singing of the national anthem, to sing, and if need be to accompany the anthem on a musical instrument were contrary to article 19 of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court did not follow the path opened up by the district court in its February ruling, which was subsequent to the article.