Committee on Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, The Third Consideration of Japanese Governmental Report: Proposal of List of Issues for Pre-sessional Working Group

2003.1.27

Article 2(c)(d)[Obligation of State Parties]
<Training for Personnel in the Justice Field>

1. The Supreme Court is responsible for the training of those who will be qualified as lawyers, i.e. judges, public prosecutors, and practicing attorneys in Japan. Are issues such as the domestic effect of international treaties and conventions, including CEDAW, or the social context of discrimination included in the training curriculum? Are those would-be lawyers given some instruction and training to overcome their own gender bias?
2. Regarding the training courses undertaken by public prosecutors, how much time is allocated to issues of the rights of women, of direct and indirect discrimination against women, and other matters pertaining to women? How often are these training courses offered? (How long would it take for all public prosecutors to undertake an appropriate training course at least once?)
3. Regarding the training courses pertaining to constitutional and human rights undertaken by judges, how much time is allocated to the rights of women and gender equality, and how often are these training courses offered?(How long would it take for all judges to undertake an appropriate training course at least once?)
4. Regarding the training courses pertaining to constitutional and human rights offered to correctional officers, how much time is allocated to gender equality and the rights of women? How often and when are the training courses offered? What is the percentage of correctional officers who attend these training courses?
5. The Government has committed itself to the judicial reform. The reform is expected to introduce lay participation to the judicial process. Will the Government be offering some training courses on constitutional and human rights, in particular, the rights of women, to lay persons who will be called to participate? At the moment, there is some lay participation in the judicial process, namely, the inclusion of lay persons as conciliators. Does the Government provide some training courses to enlighten those lay conciliators on matters of human rights and the rights of women?
6. What kind of training courses are offered to law enforcement officers on the front-line to attain legal remedies against discrimination?

Description of The Government Report

In the Fifth Periodic Report, the Government refers to "Training for Personnel in the Justice Field" in Part II, Article 2, Section 3 (3). It states that some training on violence against women and other contemporary issues pertaining to women are offered to public prosecutors and to judges. Training on constitutional and human rights is also offered to correctional officers.

Reason for the Questions

Several bar associations have illustrated in their reports that there is apparent "gender bias in courts." The existence of "gender bias in courts" is a very serious problem, especially when gender bias exists among those who participate in the administration of justice and provide for legal remedies to those discriminated against. Yet, the Fifth Government Report refers to the issue of violence against women as the major concern in its training process as if it is the only discrimination in need of legal assistance. (Furthermore, the Japanese text, tentatively translated by the Government, refers to legal remedies against discrimination while the English text refers to legal assistance against discrimination.) This is not to deny that violence against women is a very serious issue, but the discrimination should be understood from much wider perspectives. For example, the Government could have indicated in these training sessions that, for people involved in the administration of justice, having the expectation that a woman should act to fit the expectation of femininity within the society, or that the belittling, ignoring, and silencing of a woman's voice in themselves are discrimination.

1. In Japan, qualified lawyers are trained under the auspices of the Supreme Court (and paid their stipends during the training period by the Government). It would not be too much to expect the Government to make it its major policy to overcome gender bias, particularly among lawyers. We trust that the Legal Training and Research Institute already offers sufficient programs so that newly-qualified lawyers are free of gender bias and that it is currently planning to offer recurrent programs for others. Nevertheless, it is impossible to assess its accomplishment in overcoming gender bias without disclosure of the specific contents of the curriculum offered to trainees at the Institute.
2. 3. Without detailed information on the contents and the frequency of training courses that judges and public prosecutors undertake, it is not clear that the training is offered to all judges and public prosecutors or to those who voluntarily attend the course, or even limited to those whom their superiors decided are in need of such training. We sincerely hope that these training courses are undertaken by all judges and public prosecutors at short intervals. We are also concerned with the contents of the courses being offered. As there is no indication of the details of the contents, what we could do is hope that they are sufficiently enlightening to those who had the opportunity to undertake them.
   We appreciate the recent trend among courts that became apparent in the so-called "price of life" issue. The courts had traditionally calculated the compensation for a deceased in a traffic accident by relying on the expected earnings and the loss thereof of the deceased. As there would be little information when the deceased was of tender age, courts utilized the average wage of male workers for a young boy and the average wage of female workers for a young girl (in a country where an average female worker earns less than 60% of an average male worker) as the basis of the expected earning, and assessed the compensation for a girl considerably less than that of a boy of the same age. In recent years, various courts began to calculate the average wage of all workers for a girl (while maintaining the average wage of male workers for a boy). Although this does not mean that courts have completely abandoned their gender-specific views in terms of what a person could have been had s/he been alive, we welcome the change as evidence that courts are willing to do their share to realize a gender-equal society.

4. We agree that the courses offered to correctional officers, on constitutional and human rights, are extremely important. In fact, we would like to emphasize the importance of their understanding of these rights, and that we believe these courses, including training to overcome gender bias, should be given at the very beginning of their career as their first required training.
5. This is not to suggest that some legal education may be equated with the ability to be free of gender bias. Nevertheless, it would not be too much to expect lawyers, who had proper legal education and training, to know more about constitutional and human rights and to be more sensitive to issues of discrimination than an average lay person. When the legal system expects lay persons to participate fully in the administration of justice, it is also expected that those people would bring commonsense into the deliberation process. We welcome the injection of commonsense to our judicial decisions but would like to raise the possibility that "commonsense" within certain segments of society might not recognize discrimination as such or might perceive it as a natural state of being. It is strongly recommended to have some training sessions and courses on gender bias, as well as on the rights of women, and on discrimination against women particularly when there is lay participation in the judicial process. At the moment, lay conciliators are the essential element in family disputes, particularly in divorce proceedings. It appears that some of their social and gender biases have intimidated many women and hindered their access to law.
6. The Government Report does not include law enforcement officers-- as if they are irrelevant to legal remedies being offered. We believe that law enforcement officers and their training programs are very important because these officers are at the forefront in dealing with violations of the rights of women and discrimination against women. In fact, we believe that law enforcement is so important in this aspect, it is necessary for the public to know the contents of the training the officers undertake in the areas of the rights of women, discrimination and its prevention, gender equality, and gender bias.

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