No Nukes Newsletter: November 30, 2016
No Nukes Rights! Lawsuit against The Nuclear Reactor Suppliers
Dear Plaintiffs and Supporters,
The Founding General Meeting of the Plaintiffs’ Association for the Lawsuit against theNuclear Reactor Suppliers was held in Tokyo on October 23, 2016. While making clear
our dissatisfaction with the verdict of the first trial, it was confirmed that we would
stand together in solidarity to fight the appeal trial. This newsletter contains information
on 1) the current state of the lawsuit, 2) a brief overview of the Founding General
Meeting of the Plaintiffs’ Association.
As we move toward the high court (appeal) trial, we very much hope we can continue tocount on your strong support.
1) Current state of the Lawsuit against The Nuclear Reactor Suppliers
The legal team has already submitted the appeal claim and the statement of the reasonsfor the appeal to the court, but because these documents have not yet been put in order,
they are still at 24th Branch of Civil Affairs of the Tokyo District Court, which handled
the first trial. As soon as the section of the High Court that is designated to hear the trail
is determined, the legal team will make approaches to the court concerning
consultations on the trial procedure. The designation of the date for oral proceedings
will probably occur in the new year.
As we mentioned in the previous newsletter, the statement of the reasons for theappeal begins with the criticism that the verdict of the first trial was extremely weak incontent and was tantamount to an abdication of the role of the judiciary. The statement
then proceeds to give robust and deeper arguments for the appellants’ claims concerning
the points of contention, including the no-nukes right and its violation, theunconstitutionality of the system of concentration of liability, the abuse of rights, theliability of nuclear reactor suppliers, and the creditors’ right of subrogation. An English
summary of the statement of the reasons for the appeal is being prepared and will bepublished on the lawsuit website, although that may not happen until all the Japanese
documents are also published, which may be at the start of the oral proceedings of theappeal trial.

2) A brief overview of the Founding General Meeting of the Plaintiffs’ Association
for the Lawsuit against The Nuclear Reactor Suppliersi) Background
Originally, the power of attorney letters that all the plaintiffs have submitted shouldhave been valid for the appeal trial (in the High Court) and the appeal hearing (in theSupreme Court) but the High Court has demanded submission of appeal power ofattorney letters “to clarify the power of attorney of the lawyers” (to clarify thedissatisfaction of the plaintiffs with the verdict of the first trial).
The legal team is taking the stance of opposing this demand by the High Court, but inthe case that this becomes impossible it will be necessary to ask everyone (1,300plaintiffs in Japan and 2,400 plaintiffs overseas) to submit appeal power of attorney
letters. In order to allow the trial to move ahead smoothly (in the first trial it took a year
and several months to read all the letters of attorney carefully) we would like to ask
everyone to submit power of attorney letters for the appeal trial to show yourdissatisfaction with the verdict of the first trial. If you have not sent us your power ofattorney for the appeal trial, we very much hope that you will do so soon and that it will
be possible to have every single plaintiff who wishes to be involved with this trial sendin their power of attorney. (Please see the end of this newsletter for details on how tosend in your power of attorney letter.)ii) Publicity
To announce the founding of the Plaintiffs’ Association for the Lawsuit against The
Nuclear Reactor Suppliers, the Plaintiffs Facilitators Group sent out postcards to allplaintiffs, including postcards translated into English, Korean, Chinese, and Indonesian.
An English version of the Charter of the Plaintiffs Association was also prepared.
iii) The founding meeting was attended by 33 people, and 228 letters of authorization(which count as attendance at the meeting) were sent in. (Thus far 596 people have sentin powers of attorney, 28 from overseas.)iv)
The two Joint Representatives of the lawsuit legal team, Mr. Akihiro Shima and Mr.
Kawai Hiroyuki, as well as Mr. Daisuke Sato of the No Nukes Asia Forum and Mr.
Masashi Goto, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of NPO the Union for AlternativePathways in Science & Technology (APAST) gave greetings speeches. The lawyer Mr.
Akihiro Shima can be seen giving a detailed explanation of the appeal at the founding
meeting at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UyMmgsWPzc&feature=youtu.be
Of course, in Japanese, but at least you can see what is happening. (Just over 13 mins)
Mr. Daisuke Sato can be seen speaking at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpA_QlhDwTQ
Of course, in Japanese. (Just under 6 mins)v) Resolutions
Resolution 1: The Plaintiffs’ Association Charter was approved with a number ofamendments. The amended version of the English translation will be available soon.
The Charter having been approved, it was then possible to confirm that the Founding
Meeting was quorate (more than one-fifth of the plaintiffs present, includingauthorization letters).
Resolution 2: The budget proposal, was deliberated and approved after a few questions.
Resolution 3: The demand for the transfer of assets from the “Lawsuit Association” wasapproved after many opinions had been voiced and a vote taken.
Resolution 4: Detailed regulations for the election procedures was approved without
amendments.
Resolution 5: The election of the facilitators’ representatives and the accounts facilitator
was completed with the election of Mr. Nozoe and Mr. Okubo as the representatives.
Later, Mr. Oikawa was elected as the accounts facilitator.
Resolution 6: Approval of the minutes was not debated due to lack of time, and waspassed over to the Plaintiffs’ Facilitators to approve at a later date.
3) Other notes for overseas plaintiffs
As mentioned above, the statement of the reasons for the appeal is now beingsummarized in English and will be ready soon, but will not be published on the website
until it is decided that the original Japanese version can be published, and that may bewhen the oral proceedings for the appeal are about to start, sometime in the new year,2017.
In addition, statements of opinion for the appeal trial by Mr. Masashi Goto (nuclear
reactor flaws and safety), Honorary Professor Terumitsu Honma (Compensation for
Nuclear Damage (CND) Act and protection of victims) and Professor Nozomi Yamada(requirements for the creditors’ right of subrogation) will also be summarized in English,and this work is ongoing now. An English version of the amended Charter of thePlaintiffs Association is also being prepared and will be available soon.
We are very hopeful that you will stay with us during the appeal trial and beyond. The
fight is not yet over by any means, and needs to be fought so that the defects of nuclear
power stations and the terrible effects of radiation are given a full airing in public. Weurge you to send in your power of attorney letter if you have not done so already and to
ask other interested people (we should all be interested in this!) to become plaintiffs.
Any publicity you can give to this trial so that people around you know what ishappening here, will be extremely welcome to us. Please feel free to email us at anytime
with your questions and comments. We look forward very much to hearing from you!
---------------------------------------------------The power of attorney form can be downloaded from the following page:
http://nonukesrights.holy.jp/pa.html
The top page for the website of the No Nukes Rights! Lawsuit against the Nuclear
Reactor Suppliers is:
http://nonukesrights.holy.jp/
Our email address for inquiries from overseas is:
information_overseas@nonukesrights.holy.jp
The postal address to send power of attorney letters and other communications is:
Overseas Plaintiffs Manager, Facilitators GroupC/O R-Rights Law Office,3rd Floor, 3-9-10 Tsukiji,
Chuo-ku,
Tokyo,
JAPAN 104-0045
We look forward very much to hearing from you!