Верховный суд Японии подтвердил увольнение водителя автобуса за присвоение 1000 иен

In February 11, 2022, a Kyoto city bus driver accepted a 1,000-yen banknote from a group of 5 customers that would have together owed the transportation bureau ¥1150 (yen) on their fare. The customer had given him ¥150 in coins and then taken the remainder ¥1000 out of his pocket without recording it as revenue. He had driven buses for the Kyoto City Transportation Bureau since April 1993. He had earned commendation. Over almost 29 years as an employee of the Kyoto City Transportation Bureau and driving a bus, he has never received a disciplinary action for mishandling or misappropriating funds. It wasn’t enough. The Week Everything Unraveled The fare was not the only thing that caught up with him that week. Kyoto’s transportation bureau prohibits drivers from using electronic cigarettes inside city buses. Between February 11 and February 17, the same week as the fare incident, the driver used one five times while seated at the wheel of parked, empty buses. A supervisor reviewing drive recorder footage spotted the behavior on February 18. When questioned, he admitted to the e-cigarette violations immediately. The 1,000 yen was a different matter. Despite being caught on camera, he tried to deny it during a meeting with his superior and only acknowledged the theft after being confronted with the footage directly. Kyoto City dismissed him on March 2, 2022. It also decided he would receive none of his retirement allowance: 12,114,214 yen, the accumulated entitlement of a 29-year public sector career. Three Courts, Three Different Answers What followed the incident was a dispute over law which exposed an actual disagreement among the Japanese judiciary regarding when proportionality is reached and punishment commences. In July of 2023, the Kyoto District Court ruled in favor of the City of Kyoto. It rejected both the challenge to the dismissal and the challenge to the forfeiture of his retirement allowance. However, in February of 2024 the Osaka High Court made some difference. The High Court ruled that the man’s dismissal from employment by the City of Kyoto was proper. However, it established a clear boundary around the repayment of approximately $7.00, which he had taken (approximately $1.00) and then repaid. The man had worked for the City of Kyoto for twenty-nine (29) years and did not have any past history of misconduct with respect to the use of public funds, nor with respect to performance of his duties as an employee. In its conclusion, the High Court stated that stripping a man of twelve point one (12.1) million yen for keeping seven dollars ($7.00), constituted a violation of proportionality. The City of Kyoto filed an appeal of this decision with the Supreme Court of Japan. Why the Supreme Court Disagreed On April 17, the highest court in the land overturned the ruling. All five judges unanimously deemed the withholding of the allowance lawful, ruling that pocketing public funds was an act of “serious misconduct” that “significantly damaged the public’s trust in the bus business.” The justices did not dispute the facts. They reframed what those facts meant. The central issue, the Court held, was not the size of the amount. It was what the amount represented. City bus drivers occupy a position of specific financial trust. They often work alone, receiving fares directly from passengers, with no secondary check on the handling of that cash. Kyoto’s transportation rules even bar drivers from carrying personal money while on duty, specifically to eliminate ambiguity between private funds and public revenue. According to CBS News, Shinichi Hirai, an official at Kyoto’s public transport bureau, put it plainly: “Each one of the bus drivers works alone and handles public money. We took it very seriously that embezzlement related to this area of our work took place.” Keeping the 1,000-yen note was not a petty error in judgment. It was a deliberate act, in the middle of a public duty, involving money the driver was specifically entrusted to handle. His initial denial, reversed only when confronted with footage, made the breach harder to dismiss. The Court upheld the termination. It upheld the forfeiture. The case was closed. The Proportionality Question That Won’t Go Away The Supreme Court’s ruling is legally final, but it does not fully settle the underlying discomfort. The High Court’s logic was not weak. It was a reasonable application of proportionality principles that most legal systems take seriously. The money was trivial. It was repaid. The man’s record across nearly three decades was otherwise clean in the category that mattered. Two serious courts looked at the same facts and reached opposite conclusions about whether the punishment fit. With the matter brought to a close, the former driver is now out his retirement bonus plus around three years’ worth of legal fees on top of it. What the Supreme Court ultimately decided is that in certain roles, those involving direct, unsupervised custody of public money, the threshold for what constitutes a serious breach is lower than it might appear. The dollar amount is a distraction. The breach of institutional trust is the point. That reasoning has implications well beyond this case. For public sector workers across Japan whose jobs involve handling government funds, the ruling establishes clearly: the amount you take matters far less than the fact that you took it. The driver's retirement allowance of 12,114,214 yen remains withheld. He has not publicly commented on the Supreme Court's decision.