The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday dismissed an appeal filed on behalf of two South Korean women demanding 60 million yen in damages and official apologies from the Japanese government over their forced labor during World War II.
The high court upheld the Jan. 27, 2000, dismissal by the Shizuoka District Court of a claim lodged by Cho Kap Sun and Woo Jong Sun.
"One cannot ask for state responsibility over an act that took place under the Meiji Constitution," presiding Judge Keiichi Murakami said in his ruling.
Cho and Woo claimed they were forcibly recruited by the Japanese government when they were 14 years old and forced to work as members of a "volunteer corps," mainly at a spinning factory in Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture, from the spring of 1944 to the end of World War II.