made the following statement about same-sex marriage during a parliamentary session: "We need to be extremely careful in considering the matter as it could affect the structure of family life in Japan". Legal challenges 2020 Tokyo High Court ruling On 4 March 2020, the Tokyo High Court ruled that cohabiting same-sex couples should be entitled to the same legal benefits as those granted to cohabiting heterosexual couples. This ruling provided legitimacy to the plaintiff's same-sex relationship, allowing the plaintiff to sue her lesbian partner of seven years for infidelity, a move that was previously restricted to heterosexual partners. The decision was upheld by the Supreme Court of Japan on 18 March 2021. Sapporo, Osaka, and Tokyo district court rulings In November 2018, several same-sex couples throughout the country announced their intention to file suit against the statutory same-sex marriage ban. In January 2019, about a dozen same-sex couples applied for marriage licenses at different city offices in Japan. Lawsuits contesting the same-sex marriage ban were filed by 13 couples on 14 February (Valentine's Day) in district courts in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Sapporo. Another three couples filed in Fukuoka a few months later. On 17 March 2021, the district court in Sapporo issued a judgment finding that the law banning same-sex marriage violated the constitutional rights of same-sex couples, specifically Article 14 of the Constitution of Japan (which bans discrimination on the basis of "race, creed, sex, social status or family origin"). However, the court rejected the request of the six plaintiffs (two male couples and one female couple) for ¥1,000,000 (equivalent to about $9,000 or £6,480) per person for the denial. The court rejected the government's argument that Article 24 of the Constitution (which defines marriage as based on the "mutual consent of both sexes") limits marriage to opposite-sex couples; plaintiffs argued that this article actually only bars forced marriage. The Chief Cabinet Secretary, Katsunobu Katō, said at a press conference later that day that the Ministry of Justice would analyse the court ruling. Similar arguments were raised in the Tokyo District Court case, in which hearings and oral arguments took place on several dates in 2019 and 2020. One of the plaintiff couples, Chizuka Oe and Yoko Ogawa, a couple for 25 years, argued that banning same-sex marriage violates articles 13 and 14 of the Constitution. Lawyers representing the couples believed the ruling from the Sapporo District Court