FORM OVER SUBSTANCE

From the Straits-Times: "Japan court overturns order to pay forced labourers."

TOKYO - A Japanese court yesterday overturned a decision ordering a mining firm to pay a total of US$1.46 million (S$2.5 million) in damages to 15 Chinese men who worked as forced labourers during World War II.


Presiding judge Takayuki Minoda of the Fukuoka High Court recognised that the government and Mitsui Mining Co Ltd conspired to bring the Chinese nationals to Japan and used them as forced labourers.


But the judge dismissed the plaintiffs' demand for compensation, saying that the statute of limitations had expired.

Some relaxation of statutes of limitations should be made in cases arising out of wartime damage suits. I don't know enough about Japanese law and politics to say whether courts or the legislature should relax these rules, but massive war crimes sometimes take a generation or more to seep into national discussions -- consider Germany, for example -- and, thus, a twenty year statute of limitation is too restrictive.