Japanese human rights advocates have for many years sought the establishment of an independent human rights commission, with the hope that it would serve to monitor human rights infringements by government officials and provide counsel and support to victims. The United Nations has also recommended establishment of such an independent commission.
On March 25, 2002, Japan's Ministry of Justice submitted a human rights protection bill to the Diet which proposed establishment of a national Human Rights Commission. Unfortunately, the Commission proposed by this bill would not meet the minimum requirements of an independent human rights commission as envisioned by the JCLU. Therefore, the JCLU has demanded significant revisions to the bill and its re-submission to the Diet. Major JCLU criticisms of the government proposal include the direct control of the proposed Commission by the Ministry of Justice and the Commission's proposed authority to regulate the news media. Details are set forth in the translated articles that follow. (As this article goes to print in December 2002, the Diet has yet to formally act on the government's human rights protection bill.)
Despite its shortcomings, the government has spent several years developing its human rights protection bill. In 1997, the government appointed a Council for Human Rights Promotion (the "Council"), to develop new policies for human rights education and relief for victims of human rights infringements, including the possible creation of a human rights commission. In 2000, the Council released its final report. This report provided the foundation for the government bill presented to the Diet in March 2002.
To date, Japan has operated an administrative system to handle complaints of human rights infringements which employs approximately 14,000 civil liberties commissioners around the country. Under the Ministry of Justice, these commissioners are appointed on a volunteer basis at the prefectural level. Most commissioners are former school headmasters and other respected members of the community. The commissioners are not independent, but are an integral part of the local government. Moreover, their decisions are not legally binding and they have no enforcement powers. Therefore, their role can be properly described as that of a government mediator. For obvious reasons, this system of civil liberties commissioners is inadequate to provide full protection and adequate remedies to victims of human rights violations.
In light of the shortcomings of the civil liberties commissioner system and the fact that the court system does not provide sufficient protection to victims of human rights abuses, there is a serious need for another means to provide adequate remedies. The JCLU considers the current debate over a national human rights commission as an important opportunity to address this need.
The need for an independent human rights commission was also recognized by the UN Human Rights Committee in 1998 and the UN Committee on Social and Cultural Rights in 2001. Each Committee urged the early establishment of such a commission.
JCLU published the three articles translated below at different stages of the deliberation process. The most recent item, from March 2002, reports JCLU concerns about the Bill submitted to the Diet on March 25, 2002. The two earlier items detail JCLU criticisms and comments on the interim and the final reports of the Council for Human Rights Promotion. The Council reports laid the basis for the Bill submitted on March 25, 2002.