List of Issues:

1. Disclosure of Reason for Detention
   
   

   Under Japan's system for the disclosure of the reason for detention of a criminal suspect, the reason given by the judge as the "grounds for detention" is extremely perfunctory. In many cases disclosure of the reason for detention is limited only to a summary of the facts already alleged at the time that the warrant of detention was issued, along with the simple conclusion that detention of the suspect is necessary. Is there any plan to change this practice through reform of the practice itself or through legislative means?
   
   

2. "Anti-Social" Groups
   
   

   In Japan, when a suspect belongs to a group which is considered to be anti-social by the investigative authorities, it is often the case that he/she will be detained on a charge of forging a document or some other minor offense for which detention usually is not applied. In most cases all that the investigating officer does is to take great pains to fish for information about the group concerned or to persuade the suspect to secede from the group. Is there any plan to change this use of detention of suspects, either in practice or by legislation?
   
   

3. Right to Remain Silent and Questioning
   
   

   In Japan, during investigations that take place while the suspect is under police detention, even if from the start the suspect expresses his/her will to remain silent, questioning will not be halted, and it will generally continue in the face of the suspect's silence. Is there any plan to reform investigative practices or legislate practices that will preserve a suspect's right to remain silent?

Background:

1. As stated in the Government Report, it is provided in Article 34 of the Constitution of Japan that the cause of detention should be disclosed in open court.
   
   However, in actual court proceedings, a suspect is simply notified once again of the facts that were alleged when the warrant of detention was issued. Then he/she is told only the short concluding part of the judgment concerning the necessity of detention that is required by each subparagraph of article 60 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. As matters stand, the suspect can obtain virtually no new information from this proceeding. In other words, the proceeding to disclose the reason for detention has almost completely lost its function as a system to benefit the suspect.
   
   
2. The Government Report states that "it is not permitted, without reasons to arrest or detain a suspect on the charge, to arrest or detain him/her for the purposes of investigating other charges."
   
   However, the investigating authorities, in an attempt to destroy what they perceive as being anti-social groups, often will arrest and detain members of those groups for minor offenses which would normally not result in detention or arrest. (Minor offenses include such things as using a false name on a curriculum vitae, not registering one's place of residence, or posting placards on electric poles, etc.)
   
   The use of this type of arrest and detention recently provoked arguments regarding the Aum case (when then Prime Minister Murayama suggested in 1995 that every minor offense be used in order to arrest suspects). But even before the Aum case this tactic was widely used against radical groups.
   
   The purpose of the tactic of using minor offenses to arrest and detain members of specific groups was made clear in an article by Mr. Nobuaki Nishioka of the Ministry of Justice's Public Safety Division of the Criminal Department ("The Indictment of Radicals on Charges of Forging a Document and a False Statement on a License," Keisatsu Koron. May, 1993.) In the article he states that the arrest and punishment of members of radical groups for forgery will cause a greater shock to the radical groups than might be imagined.
   
   In addition, when investigating a suspect who is under detention, the authorities concentrate on getting information about the group while attempting to persuade the suspect to leave the group. There is almost no investigation of the minor offense for which the suspect was arrested or detained. Clearly, the procedure of arrest and detention has been abused.
   
   
3. As the Government Report points out, a suspect is formally given the right to remain silent by the Constitution of Japan and the Code of Criminal Procedure. However, unlike the Britain and some other nations, the investigation of a suspect under detention will not cease even if a suspect expresses his/her will to remain silent. The questioning continues persistently about ten hours a day during the period of detention. During that time schemes are often devised to gain the dismissal of defense counsel who advise a suspect to remain silent.