LDP Forgoes Approval of Retrial System Revision Bill

Tokyo, April 15 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Wednesday stopped short of approving a modified draft of a bill aimed at revising the country’s retrial system. Many LDP members demanded that the draft bill be amended again to fully ban public prosecutors’ appeals against court rulings granting retrials. The Justice Ministry presented to an LDP meeting the modified draft bill that continues to allow prosecutors to challenge such rulings but called on courts to conclude appeal proceedings “within a year.” At the meeting, Keisuke Suzuki, chairman of the LDP’s Research Commission on the Judiciary System, asked the ministry to amend the draft bill again. Another meeting will be held on Monday. It is unclear whether the government can submit the bill to revise the criminal procedure law to the ongoing session of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, as the rift between the ministry and the LDP remains wide. Without changing any of the main provisions in the original draft bill, the ministry attached additional clauses containing nine key points, with one clause prohibiting prosecutors from filing anti-retrial appeals without “sufficient reasons” and another stipulating that courts must “make efforts to conclude” appeal proceedings within a year. Furthermore, a clause states that the disclosure of evidence must be done with “attention paid not to unfairly narrow its scope.” The draft bill specifies that the number of appeals lodged by prosecutors and the reasons for them will be disclosed annually along with the number of retrial petitions rejected in the pretrial screening process, a move that is expected to help track how the revised law is implemented. The draft also calls for reviewing the state of the revised law’s application five years after it goes into force and taking “necessary measures.” The original draft bill proposed by the ministry was harshly criticized in past LDP meetings, as lawmakers argued that appeals from public prosecutors are the largest cause of delays in providing relief for victims of wrongful convictions. The government postponed submitting the bill and considered modifications. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]