The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) has decided to abandon "unnecessary" HIV antibody tests it had scheduled to perform on potential recruits over the weekend, police said Friday.

MPD officials made the move after filing a report with the Metropolitan Public Safety Commission and holding discussions on the issue Friday.

The decision follows a ruling handed down on May 28 that ordered police to pay 4.4 million yen in damages to a man who was subjected to an HIV test without his knowledge and then put under pressure to quit.

The MPD is the only police department that has carried out HIV tests on male recruits in Japan.

Police said that regardless of whether they would appeal the ruling or not, they had continued discussions on the HIV tests with the organizations involved.

For the time being they decided to abandon testing on Saturday and Sunday, but there is reportedly a possibility that all HIV tests during recruiting examinations will be stopped.

The MPD examinations for male recruits are held three times every year, and the secondary test of the first examination, which targets university graduates, will be held on Saturday and Sunday. Police had originally announced that an HIV blood test would be performed at this time.

The May 28 ruling on the man who left the MPD under pressure stated: "Just because a person is infected with HIV one cannot say that they are unfit to be a police officer, so the test is unnecessary." (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, June 6, 2003)

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