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JAPAN: Scathing UN report on justice system - 25/05/2007
Japan's legal fraternity has backed calls by the United Nations for Japan's justice system to be overhauled. The UN's Committee Against Torture released a damning report earlier this week, which condemned many practices of the police and courts along with Japan's treatment of international refugees.
Presenter - Karon Snowdon Speaker - Yuichi Kaido, deputy secretary-general, Prisons Committee of Japan's Bar Association
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windows media > SNOWDON: The United Nations has a habit of expecting governments which sign its conventions to actually meet the conventions' obligations.
There are 144 nations which have signed the 1984 Convention Against Torture and other cruel, and inhuman or degrading treatment.
In 1999, Japan was the last industrial country to sign up. It then took six years instead of the mandated one to submit its report on how it ensures human rights abuses don't occur in Japan.
And what it had to say didn't please the UN Committee of review.
KAIDO: Those issues are very urgent Japanese Government must rise to international human rights standard.
SNOWDON: Yuichi Kaido is the Deputy Secretary General of the Prison Committee of Japan's Bar Association.
The Association has submitted its own report to the UN Committee listing its many criticisms of the justice system.
It has a lot of concerns in common with the findings of the UN Committee.
Foremost among them are the prolonged detention in police custody, the high criminal conviction rate using confessions, the continued use of the death penalty and the abuse of solitary confinement - often for more than ten years, with one case of 42 years noted.
There's even a particular name for the long periods police can hold and interrogate suspects, known as Daiyo Kangoku or the substitute prison system.
KAIDO: The police can interrogate suspect for 23 days and day and night, a very, very long time, and also there is no video taping, so that goes to the transparency. That system gives an investigating authority such as prosecutor and police very big power.
SNOWDON: Yuichi Kido says there are four known cases where the death penalty was applied wrongly. He adds the Bar Association had been lobbying for thirty years to have the substitute prison system abolished.
KAIDO: The Japan Federation Bar Association have demanded abolition of this and service to the prison system. For 30 years, we have not succeeded, but we get very strong support from the UN body.
SNOWDON: The UN report went further. It particularly criticised what it saw as a lack of judicial independence and Japan's treatment of international refugees and the government's dismissal of the claims of World War Two comfort women.
As to the legal system lawyer Yuichi Kaido is pessimistic that the UN recommendations will be met. He says an absence of public debate in Japan is contributing to the lack of change in a system based on one hundred year old laws.
KAIDO: In Japan, the one movie about miscarriages of justice make a very big hit. This movie title is "I Just Didn't Do It". Ordinary Japanese people didn't know the problem with this system, but they realise and it appears a very serious concern about the Japanese criminal system. So we have a chance to change this system, but there is no such big public debate.
© 2007
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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