Why are Japanese citizens refusing to show up for jury duty?

The last time Tomoko Hosomura was summoned to perform jury service, she avoided it by claiming she needed to take care of her elderly mother. Eight years later, her mother has passed away and she can no longer use that excuse. Nevertheless, she remained adamant she will find another way to avoid the courtroom if called upon again. “I didn’t want to go because what happened to the person on trial would have been my responsibility,” the 64-year-old housewife said. “I don’t want to have to make that sort of decision, a choice that would affect the rest of a person’s life … why should that be the responsibility of an ordinary person?” A decade after Japan introduced a jury system – which it calls the “lay judge” system – it is struggling to persuade people to attend jury duty in the nation’s district courts. In 2009, when lay judges were introduced, 53 per cent of people declined to serve. By 2016, that figure had risen to 65 per cent and it is now almost 70 per cent. The government introduced lay judges hoping to provide the public a better understanding of the legal system and involve them in day-to-day civic responsibilities. The authorities were also keen to improve the transparency of the judicial system, which has been criticised for its 99 per cent conviction rate. According to the Supreme Court, 91,000 Japanese citizens have served as lay judges in 12,000 cases over the past decade, overseen and guided through hearings by three professional judges. Japan enacts labour reforms to fix notoriously long working hours Lay judges must be at least 20 years old, be on the electoral roll and have completed secondary education. However, lawyers and other members of the legal profession cannot serve. Lay judges are selected at random and receive notification they are required to attend court at a certain time and place but are given no advance notification of the case they will be hearing. It has been time-consuming. Ai Chin, a criminal defence lawyer in Osaka, said before the introduction of lay judges, trials on average took 3.7 days. By 2016, this had risen to 9.7 days. The time required to deliberate on cases in closed court sessions has increased from six hours and 37 minutes in 2009 to 11 hours and 46 minutes. There is also a reluctance among Japanese people to judge others Ai Chin, criminal defence lawyer “We have seen many problems with the system as it is. For many people, it is too difficult for them to take a long time off from their work,” she said. “Companies are also opposed to it because they still have to pay them. In some cases, lay judges have had to use some of their paid holidays to sit on juries. “There is also a reluctance among Japanese people to judge others,” she said, echoing Hosomura’s reticence to decide another person’s fate. Why Japan and South Korea are learning to accept foreign workers Hosomura, who lives in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo, said: “I think decisions on whether a person is guilty or not and the punishment that they receive should be made by professionals: the judges and the lawyers who are trained to do this sort of thing.” There were other reasons she did not want to sit in the jury box, Hosomura confessed, including not wanting to see crime scene photos if the case had involved a killing or hearing about the abuse of a child. “I suppose I was unlucky to be one of the first to be asked to do jury duty, just a couple of years after it had been introduced, but I worry that they will ask me again,” she said. “I hope I can find another good reason not to do it.” Japan enacts legislation making preschool education free Shin Hae-bong, a professor of law at Tokyo’s Aoyama Gakuin University, said lay judges have altered the landscape of Japanese law by some of their decisions. “The Japanese public in general supports the death penalty and we have seen lay judges hand down death sentences in 37 cases in the last 10 years,” she said. “The trend is for lay judges to be particularly hard on sex crimes but to reflect the common sense attitudes of ordinary people when it comes to cases in which, for example, a carer kills an elderly and bedridden relative. “These lay judges can relate to that because there are clear extenuating circumstances and some of them might be in a similar situation, caring for an elderly relative.” The first case in which lay judges handed down the death penalty took place in 2010, when an 18-year-old raped and murdered a woman and then killed her young child. The ruling was upheld by a higher court on appeal, despite the fact the perpetrator was still, under Japanese law, a youth. In 2015, the first execution decided by lay judges was carried out, imposing “a very heavy psychological burden” on those judges, Shin said. The US and other countries have long used juries to settle a defendant’s fate but juries are not involved in sentencing in criminal cases. In Japan, they are also required to decide the punishment following a conviction. The ‘predictive crime’ units patrolling a Japanese city Shin considers Japan’s lay judge system an improvement because it fosters greater understanding of the nation’s laws and legal structures, although there are components that should be revised. “One thing that could be changed would be the strict confidentiality requirements imposed on lay judges, which mean that they are not allowed to discuss any part of the case with anyone,” she said. “Talking about the experience might make other people more relaxed about serving as a lay judge instead of being worried, and that might mean that fewer people refuse to serve.”

Why are Japanese citizens refusing to show up for jury duty?

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;}Almost 70 per cent of Japanese citizens called for jury duty refuse to serve In Japan, these ‘lay judges’ also decide the sentence following a conviction

Almost 70 per cent of Japanese citizens called for jury duty refuse to serve

In Japan, these ‘lay judges’ also decide the sentence following a conviction