The Development Process of the “Ienaga Saburo Textbook Trial” and Reflections on History Education

This paper historically examines the progression of the lawsuit filed by Professor Saburo Ienaga of Tokyo University of Education against the Ministry of Education of Japan regarding the unfairness of its textbook certification process for Japanese history textbooks (1965-1997). It discusses the significance of the subsequent activities that emerged within Japan to reflect on history education. The findings of this paper are as follows: First, in the first textbook lawsuit, the “Takatsu Judgment” established the legal principle that the Minister of Education’s discretionary power is ultimately valid only within its prescribed scope. Any certification decision exceeding this scope is not merely improper but must be deemed unlawful. Second, in the second textbook litigation, the “Sugimoto Judgment” established the legal principle that examining the ideology of textbook authors constitutes censorship prohibited by Article 21, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution, and that intervening in the appropriateness of descriptions that are not objectively obvious errors and are unrelated to the author’s scholarly views violates Article 10 of the Fundamental Law of Education. Third, in the third textbook litigation, the “Kato Judgment” held that the Minister of Education and his professional assistants, the textbook examiners, had unlawfully exercised their certification authority regarding the passages concerning the Somōtai in the 1980 certification process, thereby establishing the legal principle that they were liable for damages. The “Ohno Judgment” further established the legal principle that the process by which the Minister of Education attached revision opinions to the manuscript descriptions, stemming from dissenting opinions against the majority judgment regarding “Korean people’s anti-Japanese resistance” and “Japanese military atrocities,” involved an error that could not be overlooked and constituted illegality under the State Compensation Act. These legal principles were the outcome of years of textbook litigation. Moving forward, building upon the legal principles examined thus far, it will be necessary to consider new issues in textbook descriptions based on the development of the lawsuit filed by Professor Saburo Ienaga challenging the unfairness of the Japanese Ministry of Education’s certification of Japanese history textbooks.