Recent Proposals for Reform of the Lay Judge System in Japan

Abstract

This article examined the two recent proposals for reform of the lay-judge system, the Supreme Court decision which ruled on 13th April 2012, and the trend of sentencing at the appeal court. First, it compared the contents of two proposals for the reform of lay-judge act, one was made by a volunteer group of former lay-judges and the other was issued by “the Committee to discuss lay-judge system” at the Ministry of Justice. I found that the official proposals issued by the Committee are not responsive to the suggestions offered by former lay judges despite well-formulated ideas it contained. Second, I reviewed the landmark Supreme Court decision and recognized the orientation that permitted the appellate court to review the decision of not guilty only in the case that the decision of lay-judge court had violated rules of logics or rules of experience. But it is important to point out that appellate court could review the conviction if it does not find any violation of rules of logics or experiences at the trial court. Finally, the data of sentencing shows that the review of sentencing at appellate court is constrained. This article concludes but it is injustice to leave the disparity of the sentencing among cases and the appellate court should review and control the sentencing at the lay-judge court by “trends of sentencing.”