Abstract
This article evaluates how Japan’s Prosecution Review Commission (PRC) has performed since it was reformed in 2009 to allow panels of 11 citizens to override the non-charge decisions of professional prosecutors. In the first eight cases of “mandatory prosecution” that have occurred since 2009, the conviction rate is 20%—far lower than Japan’s usual conviction rate, which exceeds 99%. In the ninth case of mandatory prosecution, three former executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company have been subject to mandatory prosecution for “professional negligence resulting in death and injury,” for failing to prevent the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima that were precipitated by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, which killed 18,500 people and caused 200,000 more to flee their homes. As of 2018, the trial of the Tepco executives is still in progress. This evaluation study of prosecutorial reform in one Asian nation suggests that, in principle, prosecutors’ non-charge decisions can be checked and controlled. In practice, however, Japan’s PRC reform has done little to alter the standard operating procedures of professional prosecutors. Further reform of the PRC may be necessary.
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Notes
As listed in the References at the end of this article, Professor Hiroshi Fukurai and co-authors have written several articles on Japan’s reformed Prosecution Review Commissions. In our view, that body of work seems too optimistic about the effects of the 2009 reform, though we recognize that most of it was written before much evidence was available.
This citizens group called itself “The Group Seeking the Truth” (shinjitsu o motomeru kai). It consisted of about 10 people (all men), including a former newspaper writer, a former teacher, and a former government worker. All of the group’s members apparently opposed the Democratic Party of Japan (minshuto, now known as minshinto), which Ozawa Ichiro belonged to (Asahi Shimbun2010). In 1993, Ozawa (a member of parliament from Iwate Prefecture in the north of Honshu Island) had left the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and he subsequently served as head of a number of different political parties, including the DPJ. He was widely regarded as a “shadow shogun” because of his powerful backroom influence—and he was widely believed to be corrupt (Schlesinger 1997; Carlson and Reed 2018). But some observers have criticized the citizens group for trying to use the PRC as a weapon in the political struggle to defeat Ozawa and destroy the DPJ (Mori 2012).
An internal report made by Tepco in 2008 stated that the company calculated the maximum possible height of a tsunami to be 15.7 m. On March 11, 2011, the actual maximum height of the tsunami has been estimated to be about the same: 14 to 15 m (Yomiuri Shimbun2015).
One possible sign of increased media coverage of PRCs is “Shitei Bengoshi” (“Designated Attorney”), an Asahi TV drama about a PRC reviewing a corruption case that is, in some particulars, like the Moritomo Gakuen corruption case that implicated Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe in 2017–2018. But in our view, this show (first broadcast on September 23, 2018) did not start auspiciously. Among other incredulities, the TV defendant (a former Minister of Justice) claimed that he had sold land illegally in order to obtain funds to support the lay judge system (asahi.com 2018).
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We express special thanks to Professor Setsuo Miyazawa, who has long provided guidance to both authors of this article.
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This article was supported by a generous grant from the University of Hawaii at Manoa Center for Japanese Studies.
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Johnson, D.T., Hirayama, M. Japan’s Reformed Prosecution Review Commission: Changes, Challenges, and Lessons. Asian J Criminol 14, 77–102 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-018-9280-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-018-9280-2