Supreme Court Third Petty Bench Decision of December 15, 1995, 49 Keishu 10-842, 1555 Hanji 47, 900 Hanta 167. The Court dismissed the defendant's appeal, and affirmed the constitutionality of Alien Registration Law Article 14(1) which, prior to its revision in 1982, required local authorities to obtain fingerprints from all foreigners residing in Japan at least twice. In 1981, the defendant, an American, refused to be fingerprinted and was prosecuted for criminal violations. While recognizing a "freedom from the forcible taking of fingerprints without reason" under Article 13 of the Constitution and a danger of invasion of an individual's privacy depending on the use of such information, the Court nonetheless found the statutory purpose of the former fingerprint registration system reasonable, and its methods appropriate. The Alien Registration Law was amended again in 1987 to require that foreigners residing in Japan be fingerprinted only once. By imperial order, the Showa emperor, shortly before his death, ordered dismissal of all criminal charges stemming from refusal to be fingerprinted more than once. The present case proceeded nonetheless as it involved a refusal to be fingerprinted at all.

Tokyo District Court Decision of June 22, 1999, 1691 Hanji 91, 1014 Hanta 280. The Court ruled in favor of a woman seeking (1) a permanent injunction against the future publication of a novel or its broadcast or redistribution in any form and (2) 1.3 million yen in damages for invasion of privacy stemming from the fact that, without permission, the plaintiff had clearly been the model for one of the characters in the novel. The novel, Ishi No Oyogu Sakana, written by Mi No Yu, an award-winning author and acquaintance of the plaintiff, had appeared in the September 1994 issue of the magazine Shincho. "Erimi," one of the characters in the novel, bore a striking resemblance to the plaintiff. Both were South Korean women in their thirties living in Japan, both graduates of the same university and both with a tumor on their face. Although the defendants had alleged that even if an invasion of privacy had occurred, future publication of the novel could not be prohibited without violating constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, the Court found that, without revision, the novel constituted an ongoing invasion of the plaintiff’s right to privacy and could therefore justifiably be prohibited from further publication. It would not be difficult to imagine that anyone reading the novel who had seen the plaintiff or who had at some time known the plaintiff, would recognize the plaintiff as "Erimi" and, despite the fact that some or all of the experiences and circumstances described in the novel may be fictional, it may be impossible for such readers to draw a distinction between the fictional experiences of the character "Erimi" and the actual experiences of the plaintiff, which in turn results in defamation of the plaintiff and interferes with the plaintiff’s right of privacy and sense of self worth. In essence, the defendants failed to take adequate steps, other than avoiding use of actual names, in concealing the plaintiff's characteristics or the relationship and experiences between the plaintiff and the defendant author so that readers familiar with the plaintiff would nonetheless have the impression that the novel was a work of fiction.