JAPAN: Dissolution of the Unification Church: This death penalty is a judicial error, the Duval Report says
HRWF (28.04.2025) – Human Rights Without Frontiers is presenting you a series of five articles about the dissolution of the Unification Church in Japan published by attorney Patricia Duval from the Paris Bar in Bitter Winter.
Japan: Dissolution of the Unification Church. The Duval Report.
1.The Religious Aim of Donations
The dissolution decision is based on the accusation of soliciting excessive donations. But their religious nature is ignored.
by Patricia Duval (*)
Article 1 of 5
Bitter Winter (21.04.2025) – The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, previously known as the Unification Church, referred to as “Unification Church” or the “Church” in this series, has recently been the subject of media exposure worldwide due to the Japanese government’s decision to request dissolution of its 600,000 followers’ affiliate in Japan, and the decision of the Tokyo District Court to grant that request in a first instance ruling on March 25, 2025.
The whole issue is presented as a financial one, a problem with donations. The Church is accused of having raised excessive donations and “ruined” a significant number of followers.
The purpose of this series is to offer a global review of the court decision in context: first, to clarify the use of donations per the findings of the government itself; second, to describe the Japanese context; third, to analyze the court decision; and fourth, to draw all the necessary conclusions.
Japan: Dissolution of the Unification Church. The Duval Report.
2.The Japanese Context
The court decision is the culmination of almost forty years of harassment of the religious movement by politically motivated and greedy lawyers.
by Patricia Duval (*)
Article 2 of 5. Read article 1.
Bitter Winter (22.04.2025) – The decision by the Tokyo District Court on March 25, 2025 to order the dissolution of the Unification Church may be, if upheld in appeal, the consecration of a long term undertaking by the National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales (NNLASS), a group of anti-cult lawyers who accuse the Church faith to be a lure and religious donations a mere profit-making activity.
The Network was created in 1987 by far-left obedience lawyers with the stated purpose of eliminating the Unification Church from Japan, since the early times when it was fighting against communism. Reverend Moon believed that the realization of world peace required preventing the expansion of atheistic communism. To this end, he established organizations such as the International Federation for Victory over Communism (VOC) in the post–World War II era when spirituality was at risk with the expansion of communism in the area, and the National Federation for the Unification of North and South Korea, making efforts toward the unification of the Korean Peninsula.
The National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales started to actively combat the Church and, to this end, has been closely linked to the “deprogramming,” coerced de-conversion from alleged brainwashing, of the Church members since its inception.
Japan: Dissolution of the Unification Church. The Duval Report.
3.Reading the Decision
The District Court relied not only on civil cases but also on settlements and statements, and ignored the issue of deprogramming.
by Patricia Duval (*)
Article 3 of 5. Read article 1 and article 2.
Bitter Winter (23.04.2025) – In the decision of March 25, 2025, of the Tokyo District Court, ordering the dissolution of the Unification Church, the court first addresses the interpretation of “violation of laws and regulations” (Article 81.1 of the Religious Corporations Act).
The court states: “However, although it cannot be said that Article 709 of the Civil Code is a provision that prohibits certain acts, the acts that constitute the tort in this article are acts that are evaluated as illegal under the law of torts, that is, acts that violate certain legal norms, and the actor is held liable for damages under the provisions of this article.”
Article 709 of the Civil Code provides: “A person who has intentionally or negligently infringed any right of others, or legally protected interest of others, shall be liable to compensate any damages resulting in consequence.”
So, the court equated violation of the law with infringement of the rights of others, which is a private matter. As explained above, this new far-fetched interpretation, which was first adopted by the Supreme Court three weeks before, has been tailor-made for the Unification Church and its dissolution.
Japan: Dissolution of the Unification Church. The Duval Report.
4. The 2009 Declaration of Compliance
Paradoxically, the dissolution was pronounced after the methods for soliciting donations that the court had objected to had almost disappeared.
by Patricia Duval
Article 4 of 5. Read article 1, article 2, and article 3.
Bitter Winter (24.02.2025) – Following the criminal conviction of four individual members in 2007 and 2008, the Church gave specific guidance to its members, which has been ambiguously named “Declaration.”
The Tokyo District Court, in its decision of March 25, 2025, ordering the dissolution of the Unification Church, described this guidance as follows: “In the midst of the above-mentioned criminal cases, the Interested Party issued a compliance declaration in 2009, and in addition to the factors that had repeatedly been pointed out in the civil judgments made up to that point when determining the success or failure of the tort, it issued an official statement requesting Church leaders to supervise and guide believers in their compliance with laws and regulations, while also referring to the specific commercial transaction law violations (intimidation and harassment) that had been an issue in the above-mentioned criminal cases. In addition, the interested parties have continued to issue public notices and other documents that are an extension of the declaration and are intended to expand on it.”
So, the 2009 Declaration of Compliance was rather a series of instructions given by the Church than a single document. The court recognized that the Church actually implemented a whole policy “to expand on” the Declaration and ensure compliance with laws and regulations.
The court thereby admitted two things:
– that there had been instructions spread largely by the Church to its entire staff to control its believers in their private activities regarding compliance with commercial legislation; and
– that the Church also gave specific guidance to its staff regarding the solicitation of religious donations, so it could not be accused of infringement of the free will of donors, as had happened in the tort cases it had lost.
Japan: Dissolution of the Unification Church. The Duval Report.
5.Freedom of Religion or Belief
The Tokyo District Court claimed its decision did not violate international and constitutional principles of religious liberty. It was wrong.
by Patricia Duval
Article 5 of 5. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, and article 4.
Bitter Winter (25.04.2025) – The Church had no chance of getting out of its scheduled execution. After the forced de-conversion of its members by the thousands, increasingly demanding requirements have been imposed regarding donations, making them nearly impossible to fulfill, like the non-infringement of free will which is so vague a criterion that the courts are left to decide in a discriminatory manner that it always applies when the Unification Church is concerned.
As a matter of fact, this concept of “free will” has been included in the new law on unjust solicitation of donations enacted on 16 December 2022. No matter what the Church did to comply with the law, the court found a malicious intent in the donation raising from twenty to forty years back, which would allegedly make the recurrence of torts inevitable.
The Church members have been left with their backs to the wall for execution. It is the very propagation of the doctrine, proselytism, which is in reality targeted, in violation of the right to freedom of religion or belief. The court found: “The followers of the interested party were engaged in acts of soliciting donations, etc. as part of the process of preaching the doctrines of the interested party, with the aim of acquiring those followers and having them make donations, etc. for the interested party. The content of such solicitation of donations by the followers of the interested party was closely related to the doctrine of the interested party, and the solicitation of donations itself was considered to be the practice of that doctrine.”
(*) Patricia Duval is an attorney and a member of the Paris Bar. She has a degree in public law from La Sorbonne University, and specializes in international human rights law. She has defended the rights of minorities of religion or belief in domestic and international fora, and before international institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Union, and the United Nations. She has also published numerous scholarly articles on freedom of religion or belief.
Photo : Reverend Sun Myung Moon with his wife and successor, Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon. From X.
Further reading about FORB in Japan on HRWF website