Top Court to Rule on Premier’s Shrine Visits

Japan’s Supreme Court will rule next week on a suit challenging the constitutionality of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visits to a Tokyo war shrine, court officials said.

The ruling on a lawsuit filed by relatives of Japanese, Chinese and South Korean war dead would be the first time that Japan’s top court has weighed in on whether the visits violate the division between religion and the state, a court official said.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine -- which honors Japan’s 2.5 million war dead, including executed war criminals -- violated the constitution.