Kyodo News

JAPAN: Gov't urged to disclose more info on executions

Despite a lack of public agreement on whether Japan should maintain the death penalty, there is now a consensus that the government should disclose more information about its executions of criminals.

At a recent symposium in Saitama City, Takeshi Tsuchimoto, a Teikyo University professor, said, "The government must disclose the information so public debate about whether we should maintain the death penalty will be promoted."

Tsuchimoto is a former prosecutor known as an advocate of capital punishment.

"The government should not invade the privacy of death row inmates and their families, but should make the information open as much as possible for debate," he said.

Ichiro Muraki, a Saitama lawyer opposing the death penalty, told the symposium, "It's said a majority people in Japan support the death penalty, but I think that's because they don't know enough about it.

"Without current information, we can't decide if capital punishment is cruel or not," he said. Article 36 of the Japanese Constitution stipulates, "Cruel punishments are absolutely forbidden."

The government has refused to disclose details of executions, including the names of executed criminals, and denied public access to execution facilities.

The symposium in Saitama is the first in a series of nine nationwide symposiums on capital punishment sponsored by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and local lawyers' groups.

The series will be held prior to the JFBA's annual human rights meeting in October in the city of Miyazaki, at which the largest lawyers' group in Japan will bring up the death penalty as a conference topic for the 1st time.

On other issues related to the death penalty, 4 panelists at the Saitama symposium - 2 for and 2 against 2 failed to bridge their differences.

Tsuchimoto said, "Almost 80% of Japanese support the death penalty, and criminal punishment should reflect the public sense of justice each time."

He said the public support rate for capital punishment seems to have risen significantly since the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system by the Aum Shinrikyo cult.

Another Saitama lawyer, Yoshikazu Otsuka, agreed with Tsuchimoto, saying the courts need to issue verdicts that people can accept.

The pro-death penalty panelists also pointed out that the legal authorities should respect the will of bereaved families of crime victims, who demand capital punishment against offenders.

Responding to these arguments, Koichi Kikuta, a Meiji University professor, said, "As less than 1% of murderers face the death penalty, the existence of capital punishment has only a symbolic meaning."

"I don't believe the bereaved families will feel comforted even if the offenders are hanged. The government has neglected to take appropriate measures to support such families by maintaining capital punishment," the anti-death penalty campaigner said.

Based on his experience of having a client sentenced to death by a high court after receiving a life prison term by a district court, Muraki said, "Some defendants face the death penalty despite the fact they deserve life imprisonment."

"Some defendants were hanged although they should not have been killed," he added.

As a step to abolish the death penalty, a nonpartisan league of some 100 lawmakers plans to submit a bill to the Diet to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole while suspending executions.

The bill will call for a four-year moratorium on executions while debate continues at an ad hoc commission to be set up in the Diet to discuss capital punishment, said members of the Japan Parliamentary League Against the Death Penalty, headed by Shizuka Kamei, former policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

At the symposium, the anti-death penalty panelists were divided over the lawmakers' proposal.

Kikuta supported it as it is the most realistic way to suspend executions and to persuade capital punishment advocates to accept abolition.

Muraki, however, voiced opposition, saying, "I am against the death penalty as I believe a person can change. We should not introduce life imprisonment without parole."

The JFBA proposed in November 2002 that the government should suspend executions until public debate over capital punishment reaches a certain consensus, although it has never sought its termination.

The next symposium will be held in Nagoya on May 15, focusing on how crime victims view capital punishment. Other symposiums are scheduled to be held in major cities, including Sapporo, Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka, ahead of the Oct 7 annual human rights meeting.