2008-04-17 15:01:32 -

TOKYO (AP) - A Japanese court declared Thursday that the country's air mission in Iraq violated the pacifist constitution, but rejected a lawsuit against the dispatch.
Plaintiffs hailed the Nagoya High Court ruling as a victory, though their demands for a token 10,000 yen (US$98; ¤62) each in compensation and a court order ending the

deployment were dismissed.
The pro-U.S. government, which has provided air transport in support of reconstruction in Iraq since 2004, angrily dismissed the court's comments, which were not legally binding and were not expected to have any effect on the mission.
Japan's U.S.-drafted constitution strictly forbids Japan from warfare abroad, but the government has interpreted that to allow humanitarian and U.N. peacekeeping missions. Japan dispatched noncombat troops to a relatively peaceful part of southern Iraq from 2004 to 2006.
«We cannot accept the high court decision. The areas of our activity still meet the requirements as a non-combative region,» Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said.
«The ruling does not affect (the dispatch) at all. We will continue with the air mission,» he added.
The 1,122 plaintiffs, including a former diplomat, first filed their case demanding compensation, a halt to the mission and a declaration of its unconstitutionality at the Nagoya District Court, which rejected it in 2006. They then appealed to the high court.
The high court, which is below the Supreme Court, dismissed the case in its entirety. But in seemingly contradictory comments common in Japanese court proceedings, the judges questioned the constitutionality of the dispatch.
The Japanese air force airlifts U.N. and coalition personnel and supplies into Baghdad and other Iraqi cities from nearby Kuwait. The judges, however, pointed out the planes airlifted armed coalition personnel into Baghdad, a combat zone, jointly with other countries that use arms, so the action could be considered a use of force, according to a summary of the ruling provided by the plaintiffs.
The court also said the Japanese mission violates a special law that bans the country's troops from entering combat zones, court official Hisatoshi Suzuki said.
Tokyo has suffered no casualties in its Iraq dispatches, but memory of the militarism that led to World War II is still vivid in Japan, and public sensitivity about the conflict runs high.

The plaintiffs hailed Thursday's decision a «landmark ruling.
«The ruling accurately understands the meaning of pacifism _ the fundamental principle of Japan's constitution,» the plaintiffs and their lawyers said in a statement.
About 4,700 other people have brought similar lawsuits across Japan, but most have lost, said a spokesman for the plaintiffs, Yoshinori Ikezumi.
The plaintiffs also argued that dispatches to Iraq violated their human right to live in a country that does not fight in a war or use force, they said.