The plaintiff challenged a provision of the Japanese legal code. The provision stated that the intestate share guaranteed by Japanese law to an illegitimate child shall be one-half of the share guaranteed to a legitimate child. The Supreme Court of Japan ruled that this was constitutional. Although the Court cited the ICCPR, it nevertheless seemed to decide in opposition to it, in particular Article 24. The decision was made with ten justices in the majority and five in the dissent. The five dissenting justices asserted the importance of Article 26 of the ICCPR. They opined that the Court was divided over how heavy the legal weight of international human rights treaties should be in the Japanese legal system.

(found in ''Incomplete Revolutions and Not So Alien Transplants: the Japanese Constitution and Human Rights'' by Sylvia Brown Hamano, 1 U. PA. J. CONST. L. 415, 477)