Japan Opposition Submit Retrial Reform Counterproposal

Tokyo, May 15 (Jiji Press)–Three Japanese opposition parties jointly submitted a proposal Friday to completely ban appeals by public prosecutors against court orders granting retrials, to the House of Representatives of the Diet, the country’s parliament. The Centrist Reform Alliance, Team Mirai and the Japanese Communist Party presented the counterproposal to the government’s retrial system reform bill, which was adopted Friday morning. The government-sponsored bill to revise the Code of Criminal Procedure calls for prohibiting public prosecutors from appealing court decisions ordering retrials except when they have sufficient grounds. “We’ll do our best to build a better retrial system by making issues fully visible in the Diet,” Chinami Nishimura, CRA deputy leader, told reporters. She said that her party will call on the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to accept Diet discussions on both the government-sponsored bill and the counterproposal, as well as talks to revise the government bill. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]