The Law System Used
Being an island in the Pacific Ocean, Japan is one of the most industrialized countries in the world with many multinational corporations being based in the country. Japan is located on the far eastern side of the Asian continent. The country's capital is in Tokyo. The Japanese occupy the highest numbers of the citizens in the country. Other ethnicities are the Koreans and Chinese, who are considerably fewer than the Japanese citizens in Japan. The size of Japan is slightly lower than that of the state of California in the United States of America. The 2017 census in the country indicated that the population stood at more than one hundred and twenty-six thousand residents. With a GDP of more than five trillion United States dollars, Japan is one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
According to the various reports in Japan, the nation is regarded as one of the safest countries in the world to reside. Few criminal incidences are recorded in Japan every year, compared to other countries in continental Asia, as well as in the whole of the world. Japan documents some of the lowest cases in criminal activities such as assault and homicide. The Japanese citizens are some of the least worried citizens to walk at night alone in any part of the country. Public order is also highly maintained in Japan, and the citizens may not fear even taking naps in the public transport facilities such as trains. Addedly, the Japanese media spreads the worry-free atmosphere to the Japanese populace to further ensure they have the safety mentality (Rich, 2015).
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Japan uses the criminal law system. Kozlowska (2016) criticizes the Japanese criminal law system concerning the delays in the hearing of the case of an arrested person. According to Kozlowska (2016), an arrested person in Japan may take more than twenty days to have their case heard. Therefore, the Japanese criminal justice system requires radical changes to suit the populace more. Additionally, the wrongful conviction of suspected criminals in Japan has been so prevalent than before. Interestingly, the citizens have a word for it due to its prevalence. Such aspects of the criminal law system need to be adjusted to ensure it serves the people as it was meant. The unfortunate incident of the prosecutors tampering with evidence back in 2009 further sparked the urgent need to change the criminal law system and reduce its oppression on the people.
Type of Criminal Code
Japan's civil law was established in 1886. One of the factors influencing the coming up of the penal code is attributed to the development of drafts of similar codes in both France and Germany. The civil code in Japan is usually classified into five books. The books that talk about succession and family retain the old ways of the Japanese patriarch, even in the present day. All the same, the writing of the code was not a smooth process as the Japanese communities often ha arguments on the kinds of sections that should be featured in the criminal law system and the civil code introduced to them. Later on, the disagreements were extended to whether the Japanese civil code would be based on the French or English law.
Not only did the adoption of the first civil code is in Japan in the early 1890s raised a few debates, but it also arose heavy criticism among the lawmakers in Japan. The person responsible for the development of the code was of French origin. The critics of the Japanese civil code thought that if the lawyers were trained based on the French way of training, they would have an advantage over those taught in either German or the English codes. Other policymakers at the time argued that the newly introduced Japanese civil code would lead to the sideline of the original Japanese principles such as the patriarchal system. That led to the revision of the code and making it in accordance to the German's code. It then preserved the old Japanese norms.
The parliament in Japan, back in 2017, had to revise on their civil code in the aspects regarding contracts between businesses and their consumers, according to "Civil Code revised to clarify contract terms for consumers and businesses" (2017). Known as the Diet, the parliament reviewed the contracts, and it was realized that they disadvantaged either the businesspeople or the consumers, with most cases on the consumers' side. Also, the civil code states that a business contract would take place immediately after the consumer consents to it, sometimes without even knowing the terms of the agreement. In the revised version of the code, the consumers would be given ample time to go through the terms of the contracts and adequately understand them.
The Prosecutor’s Office
The effectiveness of the criminal justice in Japan significantly depends on the prosecutors' organization of their duties and their job performances. Prosecutors operate in three areas of the Japanese justice. The first area encompasses their organizations. Their organizational leadership is usually based on the hierarchical form of the command. Notably, the organizations have the division of labor among the various positions such as the managers, executives, as well as the operators. The second area of their work is the criminal court. The prosecutors have a noble role in the Japanese court system and work in conjunction with the police officers, magistrates, and the lawyers in defense in the courts. The third area of their work is the broader community in aspects such as the economy and culture. Hence, the prosecutor in Japan has a very fundamental duty to the success of the criminal justice in the country (Johnson, 2012).
There are four classes of the public prosecutor's office. The first class is the supreme public prosecutor's office. The prosecutor's office at this level corresponds to the supreme court of Japan. The supreme public prosecutor's office is located in Tokyo, the capital city of Japan. The public prosecutor at this level is appointed from those that have passed the national bar examinations and the legal tasks such as apprenticeships, just like the judges and the attorneys in the Supreme Court. The second class of the prosecutor's office is high public prosecutors offices. This level of the office corresponds to the high courts located in cities and towns in Japan such as Tokyo, Hiroshima, Sendai, and Takamatsu.
The third class of the prosecutor's office is the district public prosecutors offices. Corresponding to the district courts, these offices are located in the prefectural capitals in Japan. Some of the prefectural capitals include Asahikawa, Kushiro, and Hakodate. At this level of the prosecutor's office, the prosecutor is expected to have passed the bar examinations and the apprenticeships that the magistrates and the attorneys at the district courts have. The fourth class of the prosecutor's office is the local public prosecutors' offices. These offices are based in the municipalities across Japan. This level of the prosecutor's office rhymes with the municipal courts level. That is to say that the municipal courts' attorneys and judges have the same qualifications as the prosecutor at this level (The Ministry of Justice, 2018).
Japan's Court System
The judicial system in Japan holds that the Japanese constitution stipulates that the judges are independent in their exercise of the law regarding their conscience, and are only bound by the Japanese laws and the constitution. The Japanese judicial system is composed of five different court levels. At the peak of the hierarchy is the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court handles the cases that have been passed to it by the high court. The Supreme Court is composed of the chief justice and fourteen other justices. The court has a grand bench having the total of fifteen justices and three petty benches with five justices each. The cases are first tried on the petty bench level before being transferred to the grand bench. There is only one Supreme Court which is located in Tokyo (The Secretariat of the Judicial Reform Council, 1999).
The high court is the second most senior court level. The high courts in Japan handle the cases transferred from the district, family, and summary court levels. The high courts are present in eight locations. Some of the areas are Tokyo, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Osaka. The cases at the high court level are handled by a collection of three judges. The family courts are fifty in number across Japan and manage all the cases involving the affairs of families. The claims at the family court levels are handled by one judge. In addition to the fifty courts, there are two hundred and three branch offices for the family courts all over Japan. The local offices are in seventy-seven locations (The Secretariat of the Judicial Reform Council, 1999).
The district courts handle the new civil and criminal offenses in the various parts of Japan. The district courts are available in fifty different locations all over Japan. Their branch offices are in two hundred and three locations countrywide. Conventionally, cases at the district court level in Japan are heard by a single judge apart from the cases that have to be heard by more than one judge on the same bench. The summary courts are the lowest levels of courts in the judicial system of Japan. There are 438 summary courts in Japan. They handle cases involving claims of less than 900000 Japanese yen. Additionally, the summary courts handle the criminal cases punishable by light fines and penalties (The Secretariat of the Judicial Reform Council, 1999).
The judges in the Japanese courts are as follows. There is one chief justice at the Supreme Court level, and fourteen justices on the Supreme Court. There are eight presidents at the high court level. There are 1385 judges across the Japanese courts and 735 assistant judges. Summary court judges are a total of 806. Only after five years of experience can the associate judges sit alone in the event of handling a case. All the judges in Japan are expected to have practically ben involved in affairs such as prosecution and being attorneys for at least a decade. Besides the judges, the Japanese courts also have other officials. These are court clerks, secretaries, and stenographers. Courts in Japan also have judicial research officials and family court probation officers. The non-judges officials total to 22000 in the country (The Secretariat of the Judicial Reform Council, 1999).
Unique Features of the Japanese Criminal Law System in Comparison with the Canadian Experience
The first novel characteristic of the Japanese criminal law system that differentiates it from the Canadian common law is the fact that the former bases its rule of law on the written down principles agreed as the law. The policies are put together, and therefore they are easy to refer anytime they are required. Canada gets much of its rules from the judges' decisions on the cases in the past. The second differential uniqueness is on the use of the constitution as a reference for the decisions on the cases. Japan strictly refers to the constitution each time there is a case being decided. The constitution hence functions as the basis of separation between the right and the wrong. Cases decided in Canadian courts are not necessarily handled by the constitution.
In Japan, the law of precedents is only used to solve the courts' administrative functions. Canada uses the law to decide on the cases in the present and the future of the country. The lawyers in the Japanese cases table out their evidence in correspondence to what the court has found. Canadian lawyers have the mandate to interrogate the witnesses and report the evidence in the court. Japan's civil system is thus unique.
References
The Ministry of Justice. (2018). The Public Prosecutors Office and the Course of Criminal Proceedings. Retrieved from http://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/CRAB/crab-02-1.html
Civil Code revised to clarify contract terms for consumers and businesses. (2017, May 26). The Japan Times . Retrieved from https://www.Japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/26/national/crime-legal/civil-code-revised-clarify-contract-terms-consumers-businesses/#.WsIiT3xRXIU
Johnson, D. T. (2012). Japan’s Prosecution System. Crime and Justice , 41 (1), 35-74.
Kozlowska, H. (2016, May 26). Japan’s notoriously ruthless criminal justice system is getting a face lift| Quartz . Retrieved from https://qz.com/693437/Japans-notoriously-ruthless-criminal-justice-system-is-getting-a-face-lift/
Rich. (2015, April 15). Safety in Japan: Staying Alert in the World's 'Safest' Country . Retrieved from https://www.tofugu.com/Japan/safety-in-Japan/
The Secretariat of the Judicial Reform Council. (1999). The Japanese Judicial System. Retrieved from https://Japan.kantei.go.jp/judiciary/0620system.html
