A certified legal specialist on labor and social security matters has been suspended from a professional association in Aichi Prefecture after posting tips online about ways to make employees suffer depression.

The Labor and Social Security Attorneys’ Association in the prefecture decided last Friday that his membership should be suspended for three years on the grounds that he damaged the reputation of the profession, it was learned Wednesday. It also recommended that he leave the group.

The suspension prevents the member from attending association meetings and events hosted by the group.

On his blog, the certified specialist made a post purporting to show “know-how for firing monstrous employees” and listed concrete ways to make workers suffer depression, according to a complaint filed with the labor minister.

“It would be fun to deal a psychological blow to monstrous employees,” he wrote in the post. “Let’s subject them to potent but lawful power harassment by acting inappropriately,” he also said, according to the complaint.

Several people including a lawyer filed the complaint on Dec. 18, seeking punishment against the specialist under a law governing the profession.

“I want to apologize for causing nuisance to those concerned and making them uncomfortable,” the specialist told Kyodo News. “My true intention was to shock employees who have troubled their companies and superiors with attitudes that are out of line, and to straighten them out.”

Labor and social security attorneys provide legal advice to management and workers on labor and social security matters, among other things.

A labor ministry official said they were supposed to provide services in a fair manner, and that the blog post in question was unacceptable.

The specialist’s “improper dissemination of information can never be acceptable because it causes the public to lose confidence in labor and social security attorneys,” said Kenzo Onishi, chairman of the Japan Federation of Labor and Social Security Attorney’s Associations, in a statement on Friday.