Japan Govt Eyes Ban on Anti-Retrial Appeals “in Principle”

Tokyo, April 23 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Justice Ministry plans to ban prosecutors from appealing court orders to grant retrials “in principle” while allowing them to do so in cases where there are sufficient grounds to overturn such orders as exceptions, government and ruling bloc officials have said. The ministry is slated to include these in a modified draft of a bill to revise the criminal procedure law. The amendment is intended to revamp the country’s retrial system. Still, it is unclear whether the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will accept the modification as there are persistent calls within the party for completely banning public prosecutors from filing appeals against retrial orders. According to the modified draft, the retrial system would be reviewed “every five years,” a change from the previous plan to conduct a review “five years after the enforcement” of the revised law. In the LDP’s preliminary screenings of the ministry’s draft of the amendment, many party lawmakers criticized the existing appeal system for leading to lengthy court proceedings on retrial petitions and delaying the rescue of victims of wrongful convictions. The ministry’s earlier modification limiting requirements for filing appeals was also criticized for being insufficient. Following the developments, former Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki, who heads the LDP’s Research Commission on the Judiciary System, and other party members demanded a further modification. “We can’t make any more concessions,” a senior ministry official said of the latest modification to ban prosecutors’ appeals in principle. The ministry had planned to present the latest modification to a relevant LDP division by the end of this week but decided to postpone the submission until after the Golden Week holiday period between late April and early May, finding it necessary to make thorough efforts to gain understanding from LDP lawmakers who are calling for a complete ban. On Wednesday, a civic group aiming to facilitate the rescue of victims of false convictions submitted to a group of lawmakers sharing the purpose some 40,000 signatures expressing opposition to the government draft bill and calling for a revision of the retrial system under the initiative of parliament. The civic group plans to submit the signatures to the heads of both parliamentary chambers at a later date. “(My husband) had asked for a retrial for more than 47 years,” said Sachiko Ishikawa, the 79-year-old widow of Kazuo, who was sentenced to life in prison over the 1963 murder of a 16-year-old high school girl in the city of Sayama, Saitama Prefecture, near Tokyo. “Many pieces of evidence remain undisclosed, and the prosecution continues to refuse our requests for disclosure,” she added. Kazuo, whose sentence was finalized in 1977, died at age 86 in March 2025 while court proceedings were underway on his retrial petition. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]