Justice Minister Hatoyama and Japanese Civilization

There doesn’t seem to be much due process in Japanese law enforcement.

From wikipedia:

“In comparison to other countries in the developed world, Japan has a unique prosecutorial system. Ninety-nine percent of criminal defendants are convicted in Japan, and almost all are convicted following their own confession. Prosecutors tend to bring charges only when they have a signed confession from the accused, and such confessions often occur after long questioning by police. Although defendants have a right to counsel, it is generally not possible for them to obtain counsel between their arrest and indictment.”

I agree with the death penalty if used in cases where there’s absolutely no doubt of the suspect’s guilt. The problem is there is always a degree of doubt and putting to death an innocent person is no doubt just as bad as the original murder. It’s because of this that I disagree with the death penalty because in practise it’s a flawed system.

if someone killed someone i loved. then i will kill him.
thus, i agree with him.

I agree with death penalty. Anyway in Japan so many people suicide daily, so will not be a loss, 20-30 more guilty.
Criminality in Japan is growing and growing but the media try to cover all this. I am horrified when I hear about japanese crimes, I think all of this people have mental diseases and they are a real danger for the society. Most of them have no reasons for these crimes, the majority have mental instability. They kill there own families, children, friends..it’s unbelievable.
This becomes a reality because the poverty also reach very high levels.
The government and especially the justice doesn’t have any strategy to solve things, they are inefficient and death penalty can be viewed like a escape. They try to be tough, to scare another potential criminals. The real problems still exists because the society have a strong disease. Here nobody assumes the responsibility, people are were weak and scared, they choose to jump in front of a train instead of solving the issue.
I have traveled in many countries but only in Japan, I could see people terrified, people who are real slaves of the system. They are stuck in very unclear and unwritten rules and that’s why so many become insane.
From outside Japan seems to be Wonderland but when you are here, when you understand and talk with people, friends, you see very clear these is just a Horror House painted in beautiful colors. Japanese have no escape.

Obviously, the answer is “no” for any nation in the world, because there are a lot of trade-offs in designing judicial system.
If you decrease the false accusation rate, you have low indictment rate and high conviction rate. If you want speedy trial, you have to limit the number and time for witness hearing. Choice of jury trial or bench trial is another trade-off. There is no perfect system.

The point is, if you change the system to fix a problem, that change will make another problem. For example, Japan is going to introduce lay-judge system soon, but the concern is whether those citizen judges can prevent false convictions even if they do not receive extensive court training like professional judges.

You are free to criticize Japanese judicial system based on facts, but criticism without proposal for remedy is childish.

Ryan, may I ask what “the quintessential flaw in the intersection of contemporary Japanese culture and law” is?

“The notion of being innocent until proven guilty is not strong in Japan.”
I have never heard of such an argument made by a credible person. Why do you think what you said is true?

”Pity there is no actual Japanese Law to support this article 14”
Check Labour Standards Law,for instance.
(Equal Treatment)
Article 3. An employer shall not engage in discriminatory treatment with respect to wages, working hours or other working conditions by reason of the nationality, creed or social status of any worker.
(Principle of Equal Wages for Men and Women)
Article 4. An employer shall not engage in discriminatory treatment of a woman as compared with a man with respect to wages by reason of the worker being a woman.”

Sources please.

John K. Your comments are nonsense as usual.

The Human Rights written in the Bill of Rights chapter of Constitution worth 100 times more than rights written in a law. You are arguing to the contrary and who do you think will support you?

A lot of plaintiffs won discrimination law suites citing article 14 of Japan’s Constitution. It is by all means enforceable. Even Debito won his Otaru Onsen law suite citing article 14 of the Constitution.

Do you understand?

On the other hand, other ‘developed’ countries have *laws* which are invoked when discrimination is present… the discrimination ends there and then.

Not really.
As I showed, for instance, as for housing the U.S. federal law does not prohibit discrimination based solely on a person’s citizenship status.
(J court concluded that Korean was discriminated in housing based on the constitution. And Kawasaki local law protect foreigners—-and I hope other local governments will adopt a similar law. )
Among citizens the case will be taken to government agency(either the federal department of Housing and urban development or local government), if it feels that there has been violation of the FHA, it will try to negotiate a conciliation agreement. If the negotiations are unsucessful, a hearing will be held before a judge. If the judge finds that discrimination did occur, you are order to compensate. It is really time consuming.

the discrimination ends there and then.

Not really. The landlord pay the compensation and penalty, but you cannot enforce him to rent a room, or can you? Cite a law please.

(… if the Constitution were so powerful, how come women in Japan get paid so much less than men? The Constitution says they should be treated equally.)

With a lot of special laws against discrimination how come women in the U.S, get paid less than men?
The laws says they should be treated equally, no?
And with laws against racial discrimination’s, how come African Americans remain the most residentially segregated group in the USA?
Are American laws not powerful?

I symphasize with the foreigners who have been unfairly rejected for a room, and I think there should be more laws to protect them.
But when people start citing fake cases, and fake stories and start blaming Japan out of sense of supremacy(I am not talking about you, DMC), I have no sympathy but disdain.

”what does it say about cases being tried with or without evidence for a conviction??…”

You can not convict someone without evidence(Code of Criminal Procedure article 317)
You can not convict someone with only confession(Code of Criminal Procedure article 319)

Code of Criminal Procedure article 318 says the value of the evidence is at the judges discretion.

That is how it works in modern judicial system,isn’t it? In other countries, it is sometimes amature juror’s discretion, But either way, you not determine the value of the evidence on a whim.

Mr Hatoyama calls it “an idea which I want to constrain”..when asked about being innocent until proven guilty.

Forget about Hatoyama,　his brain needs to be examined. He is after all a friend of a friend of
Al Qaeda

Your article 317 and 319 again, another example of here is a law but in practice is never carried out to the letter of the law.

Here again, you are talking out of bias.

(I don’t keep a track of them, i just note them when i read them in the papers and on news websites, BBC, Economist, JT etc).

Either you misremember or the articles are not grounded.
Just cite a few examples.

Evidence, in western courts, is not at the judges discretion. Evidence is brought forward by prosecution and defence, not by the judge.

It is so with the Japanese judicial system too.

The relevance of the evidence, ie is it factual or is it a lie etc, is down to the 12 jury members to decide independently.

And the armature juror decide the relevance on a whim?

The judge is just the “conductor” as such, to ensure the trial has been conducted within the legal frame work.

I don’t know about Britain, but in the U.S. the defendant has a choice. he can use the court without jury, can’t he?

Here the judge is basically “judge-jury-executioner” and as such has absolute power to do as he/she please with impunity

This is totally wrong.
A judge is strictly separated from a prosecutor and acts as the third party between the accused and the accuser.

I don’t know where you got idea, but let’s talk based on facts, not on bias.

John K
Yes, I agree there is cultural differences in Judicail system. Japan has imported the laws from the western coutries and adopted them to fit J tradition. As you say, in civil cases, the emphasis is upon reonciliation, and in criminal system, probably Japanese judge put more emphasis upon rehabilitation that western judges. But that does not mean the primary purpose is to corret behavior:the primary purpose is whether to see if he is guilty and punish him if guilty.

However, as I noted you accept this, but question what relevance outside of a working environment antidiscrimination has…ergo you side with the “it is morally acceptable” to discriminate in all circumstance, for whatever reason, save for being at work.

Nope.
First I think Japan should have more laws against descrminations as more and more immigrants will come in Japan not because there was no law but because that will be more convenient for them.
But note law and right arises out of (the realization of) the wrongs in a specific society and in a specific traditions.. Civil right movements in the U.S. arose largely because there were institutionalized and legalized practice of discrimination’s in the U.S. And that is one reason why American people are more sensitive to racial issues.(That is a good thing.) In case of Japan, women had less rights than men, but as for the race, there was no equivalent discriminatory law against other ethnicity. During the colonial period, Koreans married with Japanese, Korean rode on the same bus, Koreans studied at the same university, Koreans could vote, Koreans could hold offices. I am not saying there was no discriminations in Japan, but the history of more harsh discriminations explain partly why more anti-discrimination law have been enacted in the west.
Second, supporting the idea that the law should not interfere with private sphere too excessively does not means anything goes morally in private sphere. For instance, I think it is morally wrong to use racial slur even in private, but I don’t support the law by which the language people use will be checked by the law.

I think bringing in or comparing the US legal system and stat’s muddied the waters a tad.

I think comparing the other nation’s system is crucial.
Note again it is you who have start comparing J system with western nations.
And I think it is important to bring in other nation’s system and compare them with J system based on facts, not on bias.
Often people start attacking Japanese system as if it was essentially different from their mother country and often the implication is that their system is superior. Bringing in other nation’s cases will balance their minds and cool their heads.

John K.
Your link is about a case dismissed. Does it say anything about convictions without any evidence or solely on confession, as you claim there exist a lot in Japan?

John K. What does the judicial system in your country look like?
People get convicted only AFTER the case is brought to the court, prosecutors and defendants make arguments, and if the judges believe the prosecutors have proved the case beyond reasonable doubt.

The fact that a case is brought to the court does not mean the defendants are convicted, at least in Japan

John K. Nonsense as usual.
Sachio Kawabata and Toshihiro Futokoro’s case did go to court, and the judges dismissed the charge. Their case is nothing but an example that the judicial system in Japan is working well.

Why don’t you give me a case where people are convicted without any evidence or solely on their confession?

As for Mitsubishi Fuso Truck case, the president of the company was indicted, but the court judged that he is not guilty, because he was not involved in the designing of the truck, he was not in the position to check the possible lack of strength of the mechanism of the truck which the specialist the company hired during designing stage could not find, and there actually was no so-called “cover-up”. And contrary to what you have said, he never admitted or apologized any wrongdoing.

John K, what is the next misinformation you’d like to present here?

There are defects in Japanese judicial system and I hope things will get better but I am afraid the validity of the argment is as good as the following:
.
“The U.S. justice system is quite messed up. For instance it has an low conviction rate. You are arrested and tried for nothing probably because the police are too incompetent and arrest people for the crimes they didn’t commit. There were even film about it while back. I am not sure if things are getting better because they still have the jury system.”

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2007/210907_b_brutality.htm
http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Which means instead that very few criminals are actually convicted!

Ponta: I’m not sure what your point is, but no need to get defensive! I have the impression that the Japanese legal system has more problems than European systems, probably also more than the American system. Some of the reasons I have that impression are e.g. the following:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/lff/film_programme/world_cinema/i_just_didnt_do_it
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=4122

ダビ, you can have any impression you like, but if you want to say “I have the impression that the Japanese legal system has more problems than European systems, probably also more than the American system”, in a public space like this, you should establish your case.

As ponta points out, any system has its pros and cons. I am not following UE cases, but in the US, there are a lot of false convictions like this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/us/07execute.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin
In these 6 months and just in North Carolina, 3 death row inmates were found not guilty after they re-opened the case years after the conviction. I do not think Japanese system is any worth than this.