IN A landmark decision, Japan’s Supreme Court ordered the government on Wednesday to pay compensation to about a dozen victims who were forcibly sterilised under a now-defunct Eugenics Protection Law.

The law was designed to eliminate offspring of people with disabilities.

An estimated 25,000 people were sterilised between the 1950s and 1970s without consent to “prevent the birth of poor-quality descendants” under the law, described by plaintiffs’ lawyers as “the biggest human rights violation in the post-war era” in Japan.

The court said that the 1948 eugenics law was unconstitutional and rejected the government’s claim that the 20-year statute of limitations should prevent it from paying restitution.

Wednesday’s decision involved 11 of the 39 plaintiffs who fought at five lower courts across Japan to get their case heard by the country’s top court. Cases involving the other litigants are still pending.

The plaintiffs, a number of them in wheelchairs, held up signs saying “thank you” and “victory” outside the court after the ruling. “I couldn’t be happier and I could have never done this alone,” said an 81-year-old plaintiff in Tokyo who uses the pseudonym Saburo Kita.

Mr Kita said he was sterilised in 1957 aged 14 when he lived in an orphanage. 

Judge Saburo Tokura ruled that sterilisation surgeries were performed “with no rational reasons” and in clear discrimination against the plaintiffs because of their disability, according to court documents released by their lawyers. 

The court also said the procedure severely violated their dignity, adding that the continuous discrimination and severe violation of human rights for 48 years at the hands of the government was a very serious matter.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed “sincere regret and heartfelt apology” to the victims and said he hoped to meet the plaintiffs to apologise in person. 

Mr Kishida said that the government will consider a new compensation scheme.