Legal Fukuoka High Court rules dual nationality ban constitutional

In 2022, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit at the Fukuoka District Court, saying the nationality law's ban on dual nationality violates the equality clause of the Constitution. However, the district court ruled the law was constitutional in December. In the high court, she argued that rejecting passport applications, regardless of the submitted documents, violates the Constitution and that the government's failure to notify citizens about the nationality-revoking part of the law is also unconstitutional. Born and raised in Japan, Kondo spent nearly 40 years working and raising a family in the United States, where she became a citizen in 2004. She spent years travelling back and forth between the two countries — both of which she considers her home — before she was identified as a dual citizen in 2017. This first occurred at a passport office in Tokyo, where her passport was confiscated and her application for a renewal denied. Later, airport immigration officials noticed she was leaving Japan with an American passport with no entry stamp. Currently, Kondo holds only an American passport and has not reapplied for her Japanese passport out of concern that her application would be rejected again. However, she still maintains her Japanese family registry and has not received any formal communication from the government requesting her to renounce one of her nationalities.

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