Benefits of Adopting Civil Jury Trials in Japan and Lessons from the United States

Systems that incorporate citizen participation into the legal decision-making process, such as all citizen juries or mixed tribunals, can significantly impact a country’s political system and political culture. Such systems can also influence society in many ways. Randomly selected bodies of citizens have the potential to function as powerful vehicles in educating, ensuring justice, and enhancing the credibility of the judiciary. They also provide a valuable civic engagement tool that enables self-governance and facilitates checks on individuals, industry, and government. As societies around the world face rapid change and related challenges, many nations are searching for potential solutions. Many civic reformers view jury systems; broadly defined to encompass traditional juries consisting of only laypersons or mixed tribunals of laypersons and professional judges; both as a solution, in part, and means of compelling positive political, economic, and even social change. In fact, the major players in Asia and several other countries around the world have recently integrated lay participation into the administration of justice in an effort to effect change, advance public policy-making, and manifest popular sovereignty. These bold and innovative moves stand in stark contrast to other parts of the world where established jury systems and lay participation in the judicial process have been criticized, attacked, and even face diminished use. In light of these emerging global trends and the diverse views on lay participation in the administration of justice, it is valuable to closely examine the experience of one major newcomer to the citizen participation club — Japan. For over sixty years, Japan lagged in terms of citizen participation in the judicial process. As part of a historic internal transformation of Japan’s legal system, however, this drastically changed on May 21, 2009, as Japan revived citizen participation in certain criminal trials pursuant to the “Saiban-in ho” or Act Concerning Participation of Lay Assessors in Criminal Trials. Japan now conscripts registered voters to serve on mixed criminal tribunals comprised of lay citizens and professional judges. By design, the Lay Judge Act purposefully limits lay participation in its new quasi-jury system to involvement in certain serious criminal cases only. Now that lay participation in serious criminal trials has apparently taken root in Japanese society, it is an ideal time to expand lay participation into the civil realm. By implementing jury trials in select contexts involving civil and administrative litigation; Japan can foster more accountability, enhance democratic engagement, generate positive change in society, and fully achieve the objectives of its recent monumental legal reforms.To better examine the idea of lay participation in certain civil disputes, this paper is separated into three sections. First, Part I details the underpinnings of Japan’s new lay judge system and examines its triumphs and shortcomings. Second, Part II outlines the American experience with civil jury trials, and explores potential lessons that can be learned from this experience. Finally, Part III suggests that Japan should seriously consider expanding the use of citizen judges beyond serious criminal trials and into the civil realm, while addressing the merits of potential expansion and examining possible drawbacks to lay participation in certain civil trials.