Court Ignored Awkward Facts in Dissolution Case

Concerns over judicial credibility: Tokyo District Court completely ignored facts inconvenient to the ministry requesting the dissolution order against the Family Federation

Tokyo, 17th September 2025 – Published as an article in the Japanese newspaper Sekai Nippo. Republished with permission. Translated from Japanese. Original article.

[Series] Order to Dissolve the Family Federation: Examining the District Court’s Decision (Part 3) 

The Tokyo District Court Hid Inconvenient Facts

by the Religious Freedom Investigative Team of the editorial department of Sekai Nippo

See part 1: Dissolution Case: Inflated Damages, Forced Logic

See part 2: MEXT’s Legal Spin and “Dissolution at All Costs”

See part 4: Court Applies Unique Criteria for Dissolution

See also UN Expert: “Japan’s Illegal Dissolution Request”

See Japan: 2nd-Gen Believers Being Abused in Schools

See also The Marxist Transformation of Higher Education

The decision of the Tokyo District Court (hereafter, “the court”) in the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s (MEXT) petition for a dissolution order against the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (FFWPU, formerly the Unification Church) focuses heavily on filling a major gap: the lack of examination into the “continuity” of unlawful acts after the religious organization’s 2009 compliance declaration [See editor’s note below]. First of all, the District Court either completely ignored facts (claims or evidence) inconvenient for the Ministry of Education (MEXT), which could later cause controversy, or replaced them with different arguments without providing any explanation.

A representative example of the former is the written statements from former members newly added by MEXT. When the Ministry of Education (MEXT) filed for the dissolution order, it widely publicized the 261 written statements from former members as newly added evidence. However, in response, the religious organization claimed that these included multiple fabricated pieces of evidence, deliberately and systematically recording false information. Some former members testified that statements contained claims they themselves had never made. In fact, during hearings held at the district court last December, suspicions of fabrication concerning two statements submitted by MEXT came to light. As a result, in its decision, the court had no choice but to disregard these statements without offering any reasons.

A representative example of the latter is MEXT’s identification of three continuing unlawful acts (“violations of law”) by Family Federation members, with “undisclosed solicitation” listed first. This referred to members allegedly “approaching individuals while concealing their religious affiliation and indoctrinating them with ideas such as original sin.”

However, in its compliance declaration [See editor’s note below], the religious organization had clearly instructed that when using the Unification Principles as teaching material in member-run video centers and similar facilities, “members must clearly state this from the very beginning of solicitation.” Since violations could only be proven with concrete evidence, this should have been an indispensable factor in examining the continuity of unlawful acts.

The District Court’s so-called “problematic circumstances of this case”, which it uses as the criteria for determining whether unlawful acts by the religious organization and its members have been established, also consist of three items. Items two and three largely follow what the Ministry of Education (MEXT) identified as “fate talk” (exploiting personal misfortunes as spiritual leverage) and “forcing the payment of unreasonably large sums of money”.

But the first item was changed to describe solicitations targeting individuals who, even before joining, “suffered from difficult personal circumstances such as complicated family environments, misfortunes, or diminished decision-making capacity due to old age.” In this rephrasing, there was no mention of “undisclosed solicitation”.

Content-wise, this first item merely overlaps with the second (“fate talk”), and there seems no particular reason to classify it separately. If anything, one could infer that by reducing MEXT’s three alleged unlawful acts to just two, the conspicuous removal of “undisclosed solicitation” becomes less obvious. Yet, if there truly was no continuity in “undisclosed solicitation”, that fact should have been clearly stated.

On this basis, the court proceeded to divide its examination of alleged unlawful acts into two periods: before and after the compliance declaration [See editor’s note below], thereby addressing the very issue of continuity that MEXT had ignored.

In its review of the pre-declaration period, the court first addressed MEXT’s inclusion, without verification, of (1) plaintiffs who had reached settlements in lawsuits (94 cases, 419 people, total settlement payments approx. 5.6912 billion yen – ca. 38.6 million US dollars) and (2) individuals who reported out-of-court settlements (971 people, approx. 12.5268 billion yen – ca. 84.9 million US dollars). The decision stated: “As a reasonable inference, […] it can be recognized that unlawful acts in donation solicitations by members occurred to a number of people roughly equal to the total of (1) and (2)” (Decision, p. 76).

According to the religious organization, however, many of these cases involved settlements recommended by the courts themselves. If the courts later retroactively assert that “unlawful acts by members existed at that time,” it would undermine the credibility of Japan’s judiciary.

See part 1: Dissolution Case: Inflated Damages, Forced Logic

See part 2: MEXT’s Legal Spin and “Dissolution at All Costs”

See part 4: Court Applies Unique Criteria for Dissolution

See also UN Expert: “Japan’s Illegal Dissolution Request”

See Japan: 2nd-Gen Believers Being Abused in Schools

See also The Marxist Transformation of Higher Education

Featured image above: Joint building of the Tokyo High Court, Tokyo District Court, and Tokyo Summary Court in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, Japan. Photo: 663highland / Wikimedia Commons. License: CC ASA 3.0 Unp

[Editor’s note: The 2009 compliance declaration of the Unification Church of Japan (now the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification) was a formal commitment by the organization to reform its practices in response to longstanding public criticism and legal challenges.

The Unification Church in Japan had faced numerous allegations related to recruitment tactics and donation solicitation, termed “spiritual sales” (霊感商法) by a hostile network of activist lawyers who had declared the religious organization an enemy. These issues led to multiple lawsuits orchestrated by the activist lawyers and significant media backlash. This prompted the organization to take measures to restore its reputation and demonstrate compliance with legal and ethical standards.

The religious organization pledged to stop possibly unethical donation practices, including what the hostile network of lawyers claimed amounted to “pressuring members into making large financial contributions under spiritual pretexts.”

This was in response to accusations from the same activist lawyers that followers “were being manipulated into giving away substantial amounts of money or property.”

The Unification Church stated it would enhance internal oversight to ensure compliance with ethical and legal standards. Measures included better training for leaders and stricter guidelines for evangelization and solicitation of donations.

After this compliance declaration, there was a significant decrease in the number of lawsuits against the Unification Church – since 2015 called the Family Federation. The religious organization has used this as evidence that it has improved its practices and should not be subject to dissolution.]

Related to legal spin and dissolution: Lawfare: State Uses Legal System in War on Faith

Also related to legal spin and dissolution: UN Report: Japan’s Lawfare Against Faith Minority

And also related to legal spin and dissolution: Protesting No Transparency in Closed-Door Trial

More, related to legal spin and dissolution: Dangerous Flaws in Dissolution Order Decried

Also related to legal spin and dissolution: “Lawyers Lying and Shaming Japan” for 50 Years

And also related to legal spin and dissolution: Japan Following the Way of China

And also related to legal spin and dissolution: Japan’s Dissolution Case Echoes China’s Playbook

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And more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Militant Lawyers Dictate Government Policy

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And more, related to legal spin and dissolution: State and Media Creating “Today’s Non-Citizens”

Still more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Japan Copying China: State Seizure of Churches

And still more, related to legal spin and dissolution: 12 Religious Freedom NGOs Denouncing Japan

More, related to legal spin and dissolution: 4300 Abductions and Forcible Detentions

And more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Japan: Families Fear for Graves of Loved Ones

Yet more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Lawyers Manipulating, Coercing, Lying

Also related to legal spin and dissolution: Kishida Follows Anti-Family Federation Minister

Also related to legal spin and dissolution: Militant Lawyers Dictate Government Policy

Still more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Malicious One-Sided Government Source Selection

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And still more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Japan Urged to Make U-Turn

And yet more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Dangerous Precedent to Crush Religions

And even more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Tendentious Reporting by New York Times

Still more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Japan Criticized for Glaring Rights Violations

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Yet more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Japanese Communists’ Final War

Still more, related to legal spin and dissolution: Political and Social Activism behind Oppression