All quiet on the waterfront

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Japan's judiciary on trial, Oct 16th 2010 P29 N1P136 日本の検察

A run of recent legal scandals, including wrongful convictions and brutal incarcerations, has tested respect for Japan's criminal justice system. The latest example, alleged evidence-tampering by a high-flying prosecutor and cover-up by his bosses, has rallied many who want to see more regard for individual rights and greater checks on statepower. The prosecutor in question, Tsunehiko Maeda, allegedly changed the data of a file on a computer disk that was being used as evidence agginst a woman accused of involvement in a massive benefit fraud. When Mr Maeda admitted this to his superiors, they are said to have ordered him to produce a report explaining how it happened ゛unintentionally゛. On October 11th the Supreme Public Prosecutors' Office dismissed Mr Maeda, the chief prosecutor in Osaka's special investigation unit, and pressed charges against him.
The scandal has hit a nerve. Japan takes pride in one of the world's lowest crime rates. But it also has a fishily high conviction rate, at 99.9%. That matches China's and is far above rates in the west. In their defence, Japanese lawyers say that the country's under-resourced state prosecution service is only able to bring the strongest cases to trial. Fear of failure, with which all Japan's bureaucrats are imbued, reinforces a reticence to test weaker cases in court. According to former Tokyo district court judge, a single courtroom loss can badly damage a prosecutor's career. A second can end it.
Yet the recent scandals suggest that miscarriage of justice are all too common. So do several quirks of the justice system, which weigh the scales against the accused. Suspects can be held for up to 23 days without charge, for example. They often have little access to a lawyer and none during questioning. Police interrogations commonly last up to ten hours and are rife with mental and verbal abuse. On October 7th a businessman in Osaka produced a surreptitious recording of his seven-hour ゛voluntary゛ questioning, in which the police threaten to hit him and destroy his life.