わたしのブログ

The conviction rate of the first instance in the Japanese criminal court is 99.9% (actually it is the highest conviction rate all over the world). It means that just one case of a thousand cases indicted by the Japanese public prosecutors may not be convicted in the criminal court. If it were the same around the world, we would not feel it so irrational. However, the conviction rates of the first instance in the other criminal courts are quite different. For example, it is approximately 78% in USA (of course,it is different in each state), approximately 98% in China, approximately 96% in France and approximately 90% even in the Soviet Union. Therefore, the conviction rate of the first instance in the Japanese criminal court is historically abnormal. It is presumed that the conviction rate 99.9% is far beyond even that of Nazi Germany according to overall examined information. Whoever seriously examined the conviction rate, they would regard it as definitely depending on totalitarianism. The administrative branch and judicial branch would be monolithic in separation of powers.

Certainly, Japan has adopted the separation of three powers. The judicial branch, administrative branch and legislative branch should have mutually been checked and balanced. However, actually, the administrative branch has ruled and controlled other two branches and decided what should be guilty or not.In this respect, according to“Why Is the Japanese Conviction Rate So High?”,written by J. Mark Ramseyer (Harvard Law School) and Eric Rasmusen (Indiana University) as follows:”Conviction rates in Japan exceed 99 percent -- why? On the one hand, because Japanese prosecutors are badly understaffed they may prosecute only their strongest cases and present judges only with the most obviously guilty defendants. On the other hand, because Japanese judges can be reassigned by the administrative office of the courts if they rule in ways the office does not like, judges may face biased career incentives to convict. Using data on the careers and opinions of 321 Japanese judges, we conclude that judges who acquit do indeed have worse careers following the acquittal. On closer examination, though, we find that the punished judges are not judges who acquitted on the ground that the prosecutors charged the wrong person. Rather, they are the judges who acquitted for reasons of statutory or constitutional interpretation, often in politically charged cases. Thus, the appearent punishment of acquitting judges seems unrelated to any pro-conviction bias at the judicial administrative offices, and the high conviction rates probably reflect low prosecutorial budgets instead.”?」（http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwple/9907001.html）

By the way, the Japanese government has granted the point “Japanese prosecutors are badly understaffed they may prosecute only their strongest cases and present judges only with the most obviously guilty defendants”. The Japanese government and the public prosecutor’s office are proud of their superior prosecutors because it is regarded as being possible owing to their capacity. However, the criminal courts have only approved their decisions of guilt. It means that prosecutors actually monopolize the final decision of guilt in the criminal procedure. Also, the separation of three powers doesn’t function at all at least between prosecutors and criminal courts. This reality is quite similar to the relationship between Hitler’s government and its criminal courts in Nazi Germany. The separation of three powers between Hitler’s government and its criminal courts (the judicial branch) in Nazi Germany doesn’t function as well. In Judgment at Nuremberg, the judges of Nazi Germany have monolithically testified that they have never been informed of the atrocities of Hitler's government.Neverthless, they have finally found guilty.

Similarly, the criminal procedure of Japan must be extremely risky because some false charges found capital punishments in a past few decades have recently been exposed. They have eventully been freed while their capital punishments have not yet been executed. However, how about prisoners who have already been executed? Their judgements have really depended on justice? The Japaese people have got used to accept "a black bird" as "a white bird". Many of them have got used to accept the conviction rate 99.9% as totally impeccable. The Japanese bureaucrats might be double-faced? ????? ?????, ?????? ??????????