Podcast : Archive2

Reporting by Liza Hearon
Despite the government’s frenzy of preparation and promotion of Japan’s new lay judge system introduced May 21, the jury is still out on the idea.

I’m Liza Hearon with Kyodo News in Tokyo, and in this podcast I’ll be discussing some of the concerns swirling around the system. Ordinary citizens will serve as judges in serious criminal cases for the first time since World War II.

According to reporting by Miya Tanaka, not everybody seems happy about the system. Some potential lay judges are uncomfortable with the idea of possibly handing down a death sentence. They are confused by legal jargon. A bipartisan group of lawmakers argue that punishments are excessive for lay judges who speak out of turn. Some even say it interferes with their constitutional right to thought and belief.

Still, the trials will begin soon. Six citizens, randomly selected from among eligible voters, will examine cases such as murder together with three professional judges. The majority decides the verdict, and they also decide on sentencing together. This is different from jury trials in countries such as the United States and Britain, where judges only determine the sentence.

The system, which is called ‘’saiban-in'’ in Japanese, was proposed in June 2001 in response to questionable forced confessions during closed-door police interrogations. The business world in the 1990s also called for the judiciary to settle deregulation disputes.

But contrary to popular belief, Japan has had a jury system in the past. The 1928 to 1943 system was scrapped due to the rise of militarism.

Kyoto University Law School professor Masakazu Doi says that just because the system was scrapped, it does not mean that citizen participation is not in the Japanese national character, as some critics have suggested.

He says citizen participation could inspire a serious debate about capital punishment. That debate would be one benefit of the new system.

Another benefit that the government cited is greater public understanding and support of the justice system.

This is all coming with a push for greater transparency by fully recording interrogations. The upper house of the legislature has passed a bill to this end. But it has a slim chance of becoming law as it doesn’t look like it will make it through the more powerful, ruling-party-controlled lower house.

The justice minister has said that fully recording questioning would make it more difficult to carry out.

Even with all this controversy, the first lay judge trials are expected to begin in July for cases starting May 21. There is a pre-trial procedure to try and simplify each case before its presentation.

One out of 5,590 eligible voters would be picked to serve. But according to a recent survey, only 33 percent of respondents said they would be willing to participate, with 40 percent “reluctant” and 11 percent outright refusing.

Sophia University student Nao Kimura summed up what a lot of people are feeling. “I can’t even tell whether I am for or against the system because I don’t really understand why it was created and what it is for. I’m also not prepared to hand down a death penalty,” Kimura said.

Thanks for listening to this podcast. Stay tuned for more English-language podcasts on news topics at Kyodo’s homepage.