Press Release Disclosing Key Court Documents

Press release on disclosure of vital court documents in the Tokyo District Court dissolution case behind closed doors brought against the Family Federation 

Partial Disclosure of Settled and Reconciled Cases Related to the Dissolution Order Ruling
Press Release

Press release issued by the the Family Federation of Japan 28th April concerning key court documents in the dissolution order case behind closed doors in Tokyo District Court. See original article in Japanese.

The decision by the Tokyo District Court dated 25^th March 2025 (Presiding Judge Kenya Suzuki, hereinafter referred to as “the district court decision”) based its dissolution order not only on final judgments in civil lawsuits involving our organization, but also relied on:

1. Settlements made during litigation, and
2. Out-of-court settlements,
   in order to speculate on our organization’s alleged misconduct and to significantly inflate the amount of damages. This served to overemphasize the maliciousness of the organization’s conduct.

This inflation of alleged damages from wrongdoings is particularly pronounced for the period after our Compliance Declaration [See editor’s note below], since 2010. That is, only two civil court rulings concerning donations have been issued since that year. Nevertheless, the district court decision also cited:

• Eight litigation settlements involving nine individuals (including those that involve donations made since 2010), and
• Out-of-court settlements involving 167 individuals (also including donations since 2010),
  in order to argue that “even since 2010, a considerable scale of harm that cannot be overlooked has occurred.”

However, this determination was made without carefully examining – or perhaps without reading at all – the evidence submitted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). By lumping together settlements and out-of-court agreements, the court one-sidedly inferred that unlawful acts have been committed by our organization.

In the appeal proceedings, we address in detail the content of each settlement case since the Compliance Declaration [See editor’s note below]. We provide evidence and detail the specific facts and circumstances under which each settlement was reached, thereby thoroughly refuting the district court’s speculative conclusions. For example, among the litigation settlements were:

• Cases in which the court ruled entirely in our favor after it was proven that the plaintiffs had fabricated evidence, and
• Cases where no allegations of unlawful conduct were made at all.

Even among the out-of-court settlements, there are cases where false evidence was fabricated by the complainants, their attorneys, or the Ministry of Education (MEXT). These issues would have been readily apparent had the presiding judges actually read the submitted arguments and evidence from both our organization and the Ministry in the first trial. Instead, the district court judges made an extremely careless decision by ignoring the actual content and focusing solely on surface-level figures – such as the claimed damages.

Furthermore, our rebuttal makes it even more evident that the “unrealized damages” assumed in the district court decision are mere speculation without basis.

Attached to this press release is a document that outlines specific rebuttals (case-by-case analyses) related to the settlements and reconciliations. We encourage you to review it.

Summary of Individual Settlement Cases (only in Japanese)

Featured image above: Judge reading court documents behind closed doors. Illustration: Grok xAI, May 2025.

[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.]

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