The Osaka District Court dismissed the claims of three same-sex couples, ruling that it is not a violation of the Japanese Constitution to disallow marriage between members of the same sex. This is a step back from the Sapporo District Court decision from last March which did rule that the Japanese government’s failure to recognize same-sex marriage was unconstitutional and violated the right to equality.
The copy of the judgement (Japanese) is available here (summary). English translation of the judgement prepared by LLAN is available here.
