asahi.com（朝日新聞社）：Disaster rekindles doubts about courts' nuclear plant rulings - English

...the courts have almost invariably sided with the authorities, ruling the reactors are safe.

Yoshika Shiratori, 78, who represents a group of plaintiffs demanding the shutdown of the Hamaoka nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture, said what is unfolding at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant is exactly what she and others had feared.

...The debate became more than an academic exercise after the emergency diesel generators at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant failed following the March 11 quake and tsunami.

However, Haruki Madarame, then a professor of thermal engineering at the University of Tokyo, dismissed this possibility during testimony as an expert witness for Chubu Electric.

"We don't expect it," said Madarame, now chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan. "We need to draw a line somewhere because we will not be able to build anything if we have to take everything into account."