{"id":12566,"date":"2014-08-06T15:24:18","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T01:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=12566"},"modified":"2014-08-07T14:44:19","modified_gmt":"2014-08-08T00:44:19","slug":"colin-jones-on-nj-rights-post-supreme-court-welfare-verdict-july-2014-none-but-what-moj-bureaucrats-grant-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=12566","title":{"rendered":"Colin Jones on NJ rights after the Supreme Court welfare verdict of July 2014: None but what MOJ bureaucrats grant you"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hello Blog. In what is for me the best JT article of the year (and well worth bumping my JBC column to next week), Colin Jones lifts the lid off Japanese constitutional and legal history and shows definitively the evolution of rights for non-citizens (or lack thereof). Occasioned by the recent Japan Supreme Court verdict which states that NJ are not guaranteed social welfare<\/a>, the article’s upshot is this:<\/p>\n

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Think you\u2019ve got rights as a foreigner in Japan? Well, it\u2019s complicated<\/strong>
\n The Japan Times, August 6, 2014, BY COLIN P.A. JONES<\/strong><\/p>\n

Excerpt: This newspaper\u2019s well-intentioned July 27 editorial declaring that the social safety net should be for all taxpayers is perfectly understandable \u2014 particularly given that the petitioner was an elderly Chinese who was born and spent her whole life here. Unfortunately, it is a mistake to equate feeding the maw of whatever tax-fueled Leviathan nation state you happen to live in with being entitled to anything from it in return. This is particularly true in Japan, where by law it is generally more important that one of your parents be Japanese than where you were born, raised or paid taxes. After all, being a dutiful taxpayer alone won\u2019t get your visa renewed or keep you from getting kicked out of the country; why should it get you a welfare payment either?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Thus, if you live here on a foreign passport, you might want to snuggle up in a comfy chair and read through the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act, since for most purposes, that is your constitution. Having its roots in an Occupation-era decree modeled after U.S. immigration laws then in effect (missing some important features, as will be discussed later), the ICRRA did not become a \u201claw\u201d until 1982, when it was amended in connection with Japan\u2019s accession to the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. I say it is your constitution because in 1978, the Supreme Court acknowledged that most constitutional protections did extend to foreigners, but only within the framework of the immigration laws and regulations, including the broad administrative discretion granted by these to Ministry of Justice officials.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

So, you can pay your taxes, participate in that anti-nuclear demonstration and maybe even have a run-in or two with the cops, but at the end of the day your ability to live in Japan may ultimately be at the discretion of a bureaucrat\u2019s view of some of the very subjective standards set forth in the immigration laws and regulations, such as whether you have been \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cengaged in the activities related to your residence status.\u201d In my experience bureaucrats are generally nice, and most of the time it is probably more work for them to kick you out than to let you stay, particularly if you have a Japanese spouse and\/or children. But it is probably safer to assume that you do not have any right to be in Japan; that being the case, assumptions about rights to welfare or just about anything else would seem equally suspect.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It is worth bearing in mind that Japan\u2019s Korean population was divested of its Japanese nationality by nothing more than a Ministry of Justice interpretation of the 1952 peace treaty \u2014 an interpretation that paid little heed to what effect that would have on the people effectively rendered stateless as a result. That was a different era, of course, but if push comes to shove in any dispute with the government, it is probably safe to expect that you will lose, and nothing in the Constitution will likely affect that outcome.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This should be obvious to anyone familiar with Japan\u2019s system of immigration detention and deportation, which exists in an parallel dimension where due-process requirements and the constitutional protections against arrest, detention and punishment do not apply, because the deprivations of freedom and deportations are not punitive and the administrative process by which cases are resolved are not \u201ctrials.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

An Occupation-era ordinance that would have established a system of oversight through separate quasi-judicial commissions was never put into force, leaving the whole process comfortably within the control of the Ministry of Justice. In any case, by the logic of the Supreme Court decision mentioned above, those who are not in the country in accordance with the ICRRA may not be entitled to constitutional protections anyway.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Full article at http:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/community\/2014\/08\/06\/issues\/think-youve-got-rights-foreigner-japan-well-complicated\/<\/a><\/em><\/strong>
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COMMENT<\/strong>: \u00a0Well, this has been but one event in the death of the NJ communities by a thousand cuts (and the source of a number of smug comments by some saying “See, NJ really don’t belong in Japan, and if they want to, they should naturalize.” \u00a0As if it’s their fault for not doing so. \u00a0And as I’ve said before, that is no panacea; if you are a Visible Minority, you still will not receive\u00a0equal treatment in Japanese society<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

But what I’d like to have clarified is Colin’s point about whether or not people (particularly non-citizen permanent residents) who pay taxes really have no rights to expect the benefits from The State. \u00a0Although Colin’s approach is strictly legalist (naturally), I would conjecture that they do\u00a0(I have seen first-hand how foreigners are allowed to have much greater senses of entitlement here, for example, in the United States) or at least should. \u00a0But\u00a0the relativists (who insist that Japan is no outlier in this regard; they so want to be right in their own minds that they will even support unequal treatment that affects\u00a0them adversely)\u00a0will not\u00a0take Debito.org\u00a0seriously even if I start citing laws from overseas.<\/p>\n

So let me ask Debito.org Readers to assist me in doing a little research. \u00a0Let’s find some law journals and other academic research written by specialists that give comparative rights for non-citizen residents in an international light. \u00a0Here are two research questions, with research boundaries incorporated:<\/p>\n