In this file photo taken on March 12, 2010 when the then Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) held the reins of government, then Education Minister Tatsuo Kawabata (far left), looks on as then DPJ members of the House of Representatives Committee on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (foreground) stand in approval of a bill to provide high school tuition waivers. (Mainichi)

Bar associations have been flooded with letters demanding disciplinary action against their presidents over their statements supporting equal government subsidies and high school tuition waivers for Pyongyang-tied schools, it has been learned.

The Mainichi Shimbun has confirmed that at least 10 bar associations nationwide have received roughly 48,000 such messages. It is believed that a sample letter was widely circulated on the internet, leading to the mass demands.

According to attorneys around the country, the letters began arriving en masse in June. So far, the Tokyo Bar Association has received some 11,000 letters; the bar associations of Yamaguchi and Niigata prefectures around 6,000; Aichi Prefecture approximately 5,600; Kyoto Prefecture some 5,000; Gifu Prefecture about 4,900; Ibaraki Prefecture around 4,000; and Wakayama Prefecture roughly 3,600.

The letters argue that the bar association presidents in office at the time the associations sought tuition waivers and subsidies for Korean schools should be subject to disciplinary action.

"Agreeing with illegal statements seeking the application of government subsidies to Pyongyang-tied schools and promoting their activities is itself a criminal offense," one version of the letters reads.

The style of the letters was almost all the same. It is believed that a large number of unspecified people copied a sample letter from a website and sent copies to bar associations.

One of the "statements" referred to in the letters is believed to be a statement that various bar associations released in 2010 when the then Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) administration instituted high school tuition waivers. The statement called for Korean schools to be included in the program. Other statements that were released by bar associations sought the retraction of a notice sent out to prefectural governments in 2016 by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which resulted in cutbacks in local government subsidies to Korean schools. There were also statements seeking the provision of subsidies to Korean schools.

The respective bar associations are deliberating whether it is necessary to launch internal probes or take disciplinary action. Some bar associations have already dismissed the demands, saying that the actions taken by the associations did not amount to misconduct. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations (Nichibenren), meanwhile, has taken the position that each of the bar associations will make judgments based on laws and their respective association rules.

"No lawyer can avoid becoming the target of a demand for disciplinary action," says Keiichi Muraoka, a legal ethics professor at Hakuoh University. "But in this case, the people who are sending in the demands are exercising the right to do so underhandedly. The statements were released by the bar associations themselves (and not by the individual bar association presidents). If people have objections, they should bring those objections to the bar associations. Seeking disciplinary action against individual attorneys is unreasonable and an abuse of the system."