TOKYO -- The district court here on Oct. 25 ordered the Japanese government to pay 550,000 yen (about $3,600) in compensation to a death row inmate on the grounds that keeping him in a cell with a surveillance camera for an extended period violated his right to privacy.

The inmate at the Tokyo Detention House had filed a lawsuit against the state seeking some 19 million yen (approx. $125,000) in damages, claiming that his right to privacy was violated.

According to the ruling by the Tokyo District Court, the death row inmate was imprisoned in the detention house in October 2007 after being sentenced to death in his first trial. He was housed in a room about 3 1/2 tatami mats in size, equipped with a surveillance camera on the grounds that there was a risk of him taking his own life. His death sentence was finalized in 2013, and he was kept in the cell equipped with a camera until March 2022.

The latest ruling noted that living in a room with a camera subjects the person to a psychological burden as everything is monitored, and that the privacy of the inmate was extremely limited because his private parts could be seen when he defecated. The court deemed that the inmate's risk of suddenly killing himself gradually faded as he became emotionally stable after a certain period following the finalization of his sentence, and recognized that detaining him in the camera-equipped room from 2018 onward was illegal.

The Ministry of Justice's Correction Bureau commented, "We would like to examine the details of the ruling and respond appropriately." The lawyer representing the inmate said of the court's decision, "It is significant as the psychological burden inflicted by the installed camera was taken seriously."

(Japanese original by Ran Kanno, Tokyo City News Department)