20-Year Trial Highlights Criticism of Japan’s Courts

Etsuko Yamada has spent almost half of her life on trial for murder.

Prosecutors first hauled her into court in 1978 for allegedly drowning a mentally handicapped child in a septic tank at the school where Yamada was a teacher.

She was found innocent in 1985. But the prosecution exercised its right under Japanese law to appeal the verdict. She was acquitted again in late March. Again, prosecutors are appealing.

Officials in Japan have long held up this country’s legal system as a model for the world to emulate. Japan’s post-World War II constitution carries one of the globe’s most comprehensive guarantees of human rights, and its judges have squeaky-clean reputations.

But public outrage over the handling of Yamada’s trial and several other high-profile cases recently has put the courts under a far harsher light.

“The meaning of criminal trials is largely lost when it takes so long to conclude them,” said one newspaper editorial.

Along with the notoriously slow pace of trials, critics say decisions are too often slanted in the government’s favor. Prosecutors boast a 99% success rate in criminal cases that go to trial. Defense lawyers have little access to their clients.

“There are no human rights in the system here,” Yamada, 46, said at a coffee shop in this town in western Japan where she lives with her husband and only child.

International jurist groups have expressed similar doubts.

The United Nations human rights committee has repeatedly criticized Japan’s criminal justice procedures for limiting access to defense lawyers and allowing long pre-indictment interrogation and detention at police stations.

The Justice Ministry says violations of human rights are rare, and contends there is no need to change the system.

Critics say civil cases also have problems. Damage suits are complicated to file and pursuing such claims through the slow court system is prohibitively expensive for most people.

The wall between the courts and the public is high.

Public participation is discouraged, and news media access is strictly regulated. Transcripts of court sessions are hard to obtain. Cameras and tape recorders are banned from courtrooms.

There are no jury trials in Japan, with cases decided by judges alone. In criminal cases, prosecutors who lose a case can appeal all the way to the Supreme Court.

Even simple cases can take years.

In 1996, more than a quarter of all the cases before Japan’s 50 district courts took more than a year to complete, according to statistics compiled by the Supreme Court. About 10% of the cases reaching the Supreme Court took more than a decade.

“Trials are prolonged because there are not enough judges,” said attorney Yasuaki Miyamoto, a member of the Japan Bar Assn.’s legal reform committee.

At any given time, he said, Tokyo District Court judges are burdened with a staggering 250 cases each. Sessions of trials are spread out over weeks, sometimes months--and occasionally years.

Japanese government policy deliberately keeps the number of legal professionals low. The national bar exam is incredibly tough, and standards for judges even are more rigorous.

According to the bar association, there is only one judge for every 43,615 Japanese, compared to 1 per 9,504 in the U.S. There is one lawyer per 7,861 people in Japan, compared to 1 per 312 in America.

Japanese officials dismiss the comparison. They hold the U.S. system as an example of what they don’t want--courts flooded with trivial damage claims and juries awarding outrageously high damages based on emotional caprice.

Even so, this year reforms were implemented in the civil court system--the first in 70 years--to make proceedings “more accessible and easier to understand,” said Yuji Koga of the Justice Ministry’s Civil Affairs Bureau.

The reforms include measures to speed up trials and tighten the criteria for appeals to the Supreme Court.

But many experts say the larger policy of keeping disputes out of the courts hasn’t changed. They argue that the government has seriously compromised the right to a speedy trial because it fears more courts and lawyers would mean more legal challenges to its authority.

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Japanese Justice

Some high-profile trials often cited as examples of Japanese courts’ slowness:

Tokyo nerve gas attack: More than three years after a dozen people were killed by nerve gas in the Tokyo subway, the trial of doomsday cult leader Shoko Asahara shows no sign of concluding. Experts say the final verdict on Asahara, who allegedly masterminded the attack, could take 20 years if appeals go to the Supreme Court.

Lockheed bribery: Former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was convicted of taking bribes from Lockheed Corp. in 1981. He was never jailed, however, because he died while the verdict was under appeal--17 years after his arrest.

Menda murder: After 34 years on death row, Sakae Menda was retried and acquitted of a faith healer’s 1949 murder. He had been convicted at all three court levels, up to the Supreme Court, before a district court ruled--after six retrial requests--that his confession had been coerced.

Minamata mercury poisoning: Thousands of victims of mercury poisoning from industrial waste in Minamata Bay from 1932-68 dropped their 16-year-old damage suit in 1996 in favor of an out-of-court settlement. Dozens of claimants already had died.

Associated Press