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The Japan Times |
29/05/2005 |
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The Japan Federation of Bar Associations proposed Saturday suspending executions while the Diet discusses whether capital punishment should be maintained. In a draft bill revealed at a public meeting in Tokyo, the largest lawyers' group in Japan urged both chambers of the Diet to set up study panels to research international trends over capital punishment and the possibility of ending the death penalty. The bill would require the government to disclose information about the death penalty so the panels would be able to conduct thorough research. It stipulates that no executions be carried out while the studies are in progress, which could be up to five years. "The rights of those who are sentenced to death are not fully guaranteed in Japan," Shigeo Yanagi, a JFBA member who worked on the bill, told the public meeting. "They are notified of their executions only an hour before being hanged so they cannot contact their families or lawyers to seek defense. "There are no clear standards for courts to deliver the death sentence or life imprisonment, and these secret practices over the death penalty system have been criticized by international bodies, such as the United Nations," he said. The move came after the JFBA adopted a resolution at its annual human rights meeting in October that the government and the Diet should enact a temporary statute to suspend executions while the public thoroughly debates capital punishment.
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