When sterilisation was the law

Forty-eight years of statute, and a ruling that voids it back to enactment

Japan's Eugenic Protection Law was in force from 1948 to 1996. It permitted the sterilisation of people with intellectual disability, mental illness, or conditions regarded as hereditary.

On 3 July 2024 the Grand Bench of the Supreme Court, deciding five joined compensation cases, held the provisions unconstitutional under Articles 13 and 14(1) of the Constitution — individual dignity, and equality before the law. Not unconstitutional from some later point: from enactment.

The state had relied on the twenty-year exclusion period (a statute of repose), and as a legal argument it was substantial: the operations had taken place decades earlier. The Court refused to apply it, holding that to do so would be "markedly contrary to the ideals of justice and fairness, and utterly unacceptable".

The numbers, with their labels. About 25,000 people were sterilised under the law — a count drawn from the ministry's own data, that is, an administrative record rather than an independent census. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations adds roughly 59,000 forced abortions over the same period. How many of the sterilisations were performed without consent is given variously as 16,000 and 16,500; that discrepancy was not resolved against the ministry's own release, and the figure is not used here.

The limit of our own access, stated. The full text of the judgment (Japanese, 28 pages) was retrieved from the Supreme Court's database on 17 September 2026 and is archived among the sources — we had not retrieved it when this page was written. Because we have no independent translation of the original, the holding and the wording on the exclusion period are still taken from the Japan Federation of Bar Associations' official statement issued the same day. The judgment is cited by its official reference so that it can be checked independently.

[72] Supreme Court of Japan, Grand Bench, 03.07.2024, case Reiwa 5 (ju) No. 1319 — Minshū vol. 78, no. 3, p. 382 · [73] Japan Federation of Bar Associations, president's statement, 03.07.2024

Sweden: 63,000 sterilisations, 21,000 without free consent, 1,591 compensated

In Sweden two statutes, of 1934 and 1941, permitted sterilisation — the first, by its title, of "certain mentally ill, intellectually disabled or others suffering from disturbed mental functioning". The state inquiry appointed by the government — a single special investigator with experts — delivered its final report in March 2000: nearly 63,000 sterilisations between 1935 and 1975, 93% on women. From the analysis of the files: "about 9 percent of the operations were performed under coercion (without consent)"; "about 24 percent … after a formally personal application or with consent, but under circumstances that can be described as coercion-like", such as sterilisation as a condition of discharge from an institution. The inquiry's estimate: about 21,000 people sterilised without their own application or consent or under such circumstances, nearly 6,000 more "with signs of persuasion or pressure", and about 31,000 voluntarily — voluntary operations dominating the last twenty years.

The compensation, with its numbers. Act 1999:332, in force from 1 July 1999, set 175,000 kronor for anyone sterilised without having signed an application or a written consent, as a minor or a person under guardianship, as an inmate of an institution, because they had been diagnosed as "mentally ill, mentally deficient or epileptic", at an authority's express demand as a condition of permission to marry, of abortion or of a state benefit, or after "undue influence or negligence" by an authority. According to the compensation board's report, as quoted in the 2005 state budget: 2,042 people applied, 1,591 received — 1,210 of 1,521 women, 381 of 521 men. The board was wound up on 30 November 2003. The 1,591 and the 21,000 do not contradict each other: the report counts operations from 1935 onwards; the compensation, people who were alive and applied between 1999 and 2002.

[102] SOU 2000:20, "Steriliseringsfrågan i Sverige 1935–1975", 28.03.2000, pp. 16, 33 · [103] Lag (1999:332) om ersättning till steriliserade i vissa fall, §§1–3 · [104] Prop. 2004/05:1, Utgiftsområde 9, p. 39

Without a eugenics law: sterilisation of Roma women, three findings at Strasbourg, and 2,088 applications instead of 400

Czechoslovakia had no eugenics law like Japan or Sweden. It had an administrative practice: the sterilisation of women, in their great majority Roma, often immediately after a caesarean, with a "consent" sought during labour. The Czech Public Defender of Rights, Otakar Motejl, after more than 80 complaints, found on 23 December 2005 that "in essentially all cases" the operations "were performed unlawfully … no consent was given that was free of error and fully free", that between admission and operation "there was objectively no sufficient time" for information and a mature decision. He proposed statutory compensation modelled on the Swedish scheme — but only for the period 1973–1991, when the state paid a benefit for sterilisation and social workers promoted it; for the cases of the 1990s and later, where doctors were at fault, he referred the women to the courts.

Strasbourg, three times. For Slovakia, the European Court of Human Rights held in V.C. v. Slovakia (8 November 2011) that the applicant, a Roma woman, was asked to sign the typed words "Patient requests sterilisation" "while she was in a supine position and in pain resulting from several hours' labour", after being told that in a further pregnancy she or her baby would die; the staff, without any intention of ill-treatment, "displayed gross disregard for her right to autonomy and choice as a patient": a violation of Article 3 of the Convention — inhuman or degrading treatment — and of Article 8, €31,000. There followed N.B. v. Slovakia (12 June 2012 — sterilised at the age of seventeen, €25,000) and I.G. and Others v. Slovakia (13 November 2012, €28,500 and €27,000).

Czechia legislated, and the number overtook it. Act 297/2021, in force from 1 January 2022, gives 300,000 crowns to anyone sterilised "contrary to law" between 1 July 1966 and 31 March 2012 — the period the Act covers, not evidence of operations up to then: the latest documented cases in this page's sources are from 1999–2002. The government expected about 400 applications. According to the Government Council for Roma Minority Affairs, by December 2024 2,088 had been filed, 706 approved and 566 pending; the Public Defender of Rights, Stanislav Křeček, called for a new chance also for those rejected because the state had destroyed their medical records. The statutory deadline, originally three years, was extended in 2025 to five years from entry into force — to the start of January 2027.

[105] Veřejný ochránce práv (Motejl O), final opinion sp. zn. 3099/2004/VOP, 23.12.2005, §3.3, ch. 7 C · [106] Zákon č. 297/2021 Sb., §§2–4, as amended by Act 289/2025 Sb. · [107] Rada vlády pro záležitosti romské menšiny, statement 13.12.2024 · [108] ECtHR, V.C. v. Slovakia, 18968/07, 08.11.2011, §§14, 117–120, 184 · [109] ECtHR, N.B. v. Slovakia, 29518/10, 12.06.2012 · [110] ECtHR, I.G. and Others v. Slovakia, 15966/04, 13.11.2012