Recently, we realized that the Public Prosecutor's Office is threatening
democracy in Japan. In fact, previously, several human rights
organisations claimed the anomalies of the Japanese judiciary system,
pointing that the rate of guilty verdicts was more than 99%, whichsuggested that the judiciary power was practically under the control of
the Prosecutor’s Office.
Japanese people are not surprised by this fact, but still believe in theinfallibility of the Prosecutor’s Office, which is, of course, no morethan a myth, and accept this abnormal situation in the judicial system.
Especially, the Special Investigative Squad of the Prosecutor's Office(Toku-Soh), which is the section that is specialized for investigating
political corruption, was often regarded as a star.
However, things have been changed just before the long-lasting rulingparty of Japan, the Liberal Democrat Party (LDP), lost the key generalelection in 2009 and a new government by the Democrat Party Japan(DPJ) was established. Five months before this historic election, theProsecutor's Office dared to accuse Ichiro Ozawa, who was the leaderof DPJ at that moment and therefore to become the Prime Minister if
the DPJ won in the election. The investigation on Ozawa by theProsecutor’s Office had so many exceptions, and later, the suspicions
on Ozawa were proved to be false. Because this was a very suspicious
case, since then some people became clearly aware that theProsecutor's Office arbitrarily used its power to oppress somepoliticians.
Besides, it has become known that prosecutors often force suspects
and witnesses to sign legal “testimonies” that are actually written by
the prosecutors to support their stories. Also, it became clear thatprosecutors even used a kind of torture: for example, they evenprohibit suspects/witnesses to access to medical attention that isnecessary for them during “interrogations”, in order to force them tosign testimonies. Importantly, such “interrogations” led to suicides ofsuspects and/or witnesses in several serious cases.
Needless to say, suspects have the right to be assisted by lawyers inJapan. However, in many cases, lawyers play significant roles in this“prosecutors’ theater”, and even strongly recommend the accused toadmit crimes in front of prosecutors in order to be released fromdetention. (Importantly, in Japan, suspects are usually kept under
detention by prosecutors until they admit crimes.)
To make matters worse, over all these years, Japanese mass media has
not made any efforts to be impartial to both prosecutors andsuspicions, but just conveyed the prosecutors’ announcements.
Also, in Japan, people can claim to form a citizen committee thatexamines whether the Prosecutor’s Office works properly, namely, analleged Committee for Inquest of Prosecution (Kensatsu-Shinsa-Kai).
However, the committee is working in an inappropriate way: it seems
that the committee started to claim for itself the right of accusation
and arrest, without having sufficient evidence. In this year, after theProsecutor’s Office failed to prosecute Ozawa in the above case, aKensatsu-Shisa-Kai was formed to investigate the case, and finally, it
decided that Ozawa should be prosecuted although it did not find any
evidence. We are concerned that this was an abuse of its power. In
other words, if this way is accepted, the committee can accuse
anybody, no matter if he or she is a journalist, politician, or citizen,
without any evidence. Given that the Prosecutor's Office has adominant power in Japan and that Kensatsu-Shinsa-Kai can makearbitrary decisions to support the Office, these together can constitutean absolute authority.
We think that such an absolute authority, which can arbitrarily accusepeople, must not exist in democratic society. In fact, recently, a serious
scandal occurred in Toku-Soh, the Special Investigative Squad of theProsecutor's Office: prosecutors fabricated evidence in the case ofMrs. Atsuko Muraki, in order to prosecute her, although prosecutors infact knew that she was innocent.
Even mass media in Japan, which had been functioning as anadvertisement section of the Prosecutor’s Office, could not ignore thisscandal. Finally, the Minister of Justice had to mention "the problemof the Prosecutor's Office" and convene a panel to consider reform ofthe prosecutors’ system.
Notably, despite of serious criticism by Japanese people, theProsecutor’s Office did not make any reforms but tried to minimize
the scandal by blaming the officer in charge of Muraki’s case, andfinally it announced that the scandal occurred because of his personalproblem.
Accordingly, several lawyers, journalists, artists, intellectuals and alarge number of citizens have gathered via internet, especially via
Twitter, and started a movement for making complaints and requesting
information regarding the scandal of the Prosecutor’s Office, in orderto promote reform of the judicial system.
As a first step, we made a complaint to the officer in charge of theMuraki’s case for suspicions of abuse of authority. This is not only foraccusing of his guilty, but for promoting reform of the entire judicial

system, including both the regional offices and the Supreme
Prosecutor, Toku-Soh. Thus, ironically, prosecutors have to carry out acomplaint in order to prosecute themselves.
Also, it is worth noting that for the first time in the history of Japan,
citizens made a criminal complaint against a bureaucratic agency.
Now, thousands of people are becoming aware of the corruption ofJapanese mass media, which manipulates judicial and politicalinformation in favour of the Prosecutor’s Office. It is fascinating thatthese people are now connected via Twitter to claim and protest
against them. Moreover, these people have started to rally on the street
to protest against this abnormal judicial and political situation,
something that has been extremely unusual in Japan.
Collectively, it is urgent to normalise the judicial system in order toprotect human rights in Japan.
Nobuyo Yagi
Representant
Group of citizens to defend the Constitutional State
Contact:
E-Mail : shiminnokai21@gmail.com
URL: http://shiminnokai.net
Twitter : @shiminnokai21 (Japanese, English, Spanish available)