On Wednesday, in Japan’s Diet, the House of Representatives Committee on Judicial Affairs held a hearing on the country’s abusive “hostage justice” system. To pressure suspects to confess to crimes, prosecutors have long detained people prior to trial for prolonged and arbitrary periods: sometimes for several months or even years.
This was an extraordinary moment for human rights in Japan.
At the hearing, Junji Shimada described being held in pretrial detention for 332 days before prosecutors dropped the indictment. He emphasized the need to revise the custody rules in the Code of Criminal Procedure so that they conform with international standards on presumption of innocence.
Human Rights Watch and other organizations have for years called on the Japanese government to undertake wide-ranging reforms in the criminal justice system to uphold rights to due process and to a fair trial. The groups have supported victims of “hostage justice” by advocating that the Diet open an inquiry into the troubled system.
On March 4, 17 Diet members joined many others to hear directly from survivors at the second “hostage justice” survivor event at the Diet, hosted by the “End ‘Hostage Justice’ in Japan” project, run jointly by Innocence Project Japan and Human Rights Watch. One result was the official Diet inquiry.
Relatedly, on March 17, the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that beginning in April, it will expand the use of audio and video recordings for interrogations to include those of suspects who are not in custody. Currently, the law only mandates that the entire process be recorded in cases such as those of serious crimes like murder, which make up fewer than 3 percent of all criminal cases. In other cases, prosecutors generally record on a voluntary basis when a suspect is taken into custody, but it has not included interrogations prior to detention or cases not involving detention.
The prosecutor’s new measures will help prevent abusive interrogations: a key aspect of “hostage justice.” However, bolder reforms are needed. The Diet should listen to survivors like Junji Shimada and move quickly to prevent future abuses.