EDITORIAL: Inquest system

Under the revised inquest of prosecution law that came into force almost a year ago, a committee of 11 randomly chosen citizens is empowered to seek an indictment if, in two voting sessions, they decide that wrongdoing has occurred.

During the past year, the independent judicial panels decided that indictments were merited in connection with a fatal stampede on a pedestrian overpass in Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture, in 2001 and a train derailment on the JR Takarazuka Line in 2005 that claimed more than 100 lives.

The prosecution inquest committee also garnered public attention by rendering high-profile decisions in separate political scandals involving Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Ichiro Ozawa, secretary-general of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.

This system is important for criminal justice because it allows ordinary citizens to check decisions made by public prosecutors, who tend to be high-minded because of the enormous power they wield. As such, the system is one of the major benefits of judicial reform. That said, some concerns about the system have emerged; for example, statements issued by inquest panels describing how they reached their judgment. These often vary in terms of both quality and tone.

There have been explanations that failed to make clear how the panel assessed the evidence and the process that led to the decision. Emotionally charged expressions have also been used. These statements should not be expected to be based on the kind of solid and sophisticated legal logic found in court rulings. Still, there is room for improvement.

There are also problems with the way the committee operates. Each committee member serves a six-month term, yet about half of them are replaced every three months. This means the committee may be composed of the same 11 citizens as those who were serving when it first decided there was merit in prosecuting the case. Or it may consist of some of the original members and newly selected citizens. Or it may be made up entirely of new members.

Mixing original members with newly selected citizens seems inappropriate, given inevitable differences about the amount of relevant information each person has received and the process of forming a decision about the case under consideration.

In our view, all the members should be replaced for the second-time inquest. This would improve the chances of a sound judgment being rendered.

Other issues include the powers of the attorneys-at-law chosen to serve as prosecutors in the subsequent court trial. Another concerns compensation from the state for a suspect who has been found innocent in a trial triggered by forced indictment.

The Diet cannot claim to have spent enough time considering the new prosecution inquest system during its debate on the revision to the law. More debate on this issue is clearly necessary before the system can take root. Citizens should be able to serve as members of the committee without any sense of anxiety. They also must be well aware of the responsibility thrust upon them.

Debate on such matters would also help highlight the unsavory political reasons behind a proposal calling for a review of the system that emerged within the DPJ in response to an inquest panel's call for Ozawa's indictment.

There is also an urgent need to make more lawyers available to help inquest panels in their workload. The secretarial staffs of inquest panels should also be expanded. Bar associations and the Supreme Court, which oversees personnel affairs concerning the secretarial staffs, should keep the importance of the system in mind in training and assigning people to their various tasks.

Unlike decisions by prosecutors, which are checked and approved by senior officials to maintain the prosecutorial standards, judgments by citizens inevitably vary in quality. This diversity could, however, be the catalyst for long-overdue changes in this nation's criminal justice system, which is showing some troubling signs of rigidity.

Citizens, for their part, should drop the perception that an indictment automatically implies guilt and openly embrace the view that it is up to courts to decide whether or not a suspect is guilty. The human rights of people who are indicted should also be duly protected.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 10