Appeals court nixes forced Chinese laborers' demand for redress+

KANAZAWA, Japan, March 10 Kyodo -
An appeals court upheld Wednesday a lower court ruling that turned down a
demand by a group of Chinese who were forced to work in Japan during World War
II that the Japanese government and a Japanese port transport company offer
them an apology and compensation.

The Kanazawa branch of the Nagoya High Court dismissed an appeal by the six
former Chinese laborers and their relatives against the Kanazawa District
Court's rejection of their demand for some 55 million yen in compensation in
October 2008.
The court acknowledged that they were forced to work in Japan under state
policy and said the government and the transport company, Nanao Kairiku Unso
Co., both failed to pay proper consideration to the workers' safety.
But the court rejected the plaintiffs' demand, citing a Supreme Court ruling
that Chinese nationals have no judicial right to demand war reparations from
Japan as that right was abandoned under the 1972 Japan-China joint communique.
The court found that the Chinese nationals were forcibly brought to Japan by
the Japanese military in 1944 and forced to engage in hard labor at Nanao port
in Ishikawa Prefecture.
The Supreme Court's precedent-setting judgment was handed down in July 2007.
The 1972 joint communique, which restored diplomatic ties between Japan and
China, says China ''declares that in the interest of friendship between the
Chinese and Japanese peoples, it renounces its demands for war reparations from
Japan.''
==Kyodo
2010-03-11 00:36:30