The Tokyo District Court has ordered 11 people who left Fukushima Prefecture voluntarily after the nuclear accident to vacate government employees' housing in Tokyo and Saitama, siding with the prefecture in a suit over the end of free rent.
The 11 evacuated on their own rather than under a government evacuation order. They had been housed in national government employees' dormitories, and sued Fukushima Prefecture after the free provision of the housing was cut off, arguing the decision was illegal. The prefecture countersued for their eviction.
The court ruled in the prefecture's favor. The source account of the ruling is truncated and does not give the court's reasoning, the date the housing support ended, or whether the plaintiffs plan to appeal.
The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant occurred 15 years ago. People who fled under formal evacuation orders have received different state support from those who left voluntarily, a distinction that has shaped compensation and housing cases since.