Justice Ministry set to review Japan's century-old penal code

Japan Policy & Politics, Sept 4, 2000

TOKYO, Aug. 30 Kyodo

The Justice Ministry plans to undertake a major review of Japan's century-old penal system in a bid to bring prison terms and the punishment for commercial crimes more in terms with current judicial values.

A major issue expected to be taken up in the proposed penal review includes lengthening the maximum jail term a judge can inflict on a criminal short of declaring an ''indefinite'' jail term or a death sentence.

The Justice Ministry, which has asked for a 4.5 million yen budget in fiscal 2001 to fund the study, also plans to review the penal system for growing commercial crimes that have hit the nation in an increasingly deregulated economy.

The proposed penal study comes amid a growing debate in political circles and elsewhere that the government should overhaul Japan's current penal system, which has remained more or less intact since it was first introduced in 1907 under the Meiji government.

Hiromu Nonaka, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), is among some LDP politicians who favor longer prison terms for serious criminal offenders on grounds that Japanese as a whole live longer these days.

''The penal code was created at a time when longevity was only 50 years,'' Nomura said in a speech last Friday. ''Now we live in an age where people on average live until their 80s. The country will be in big trouble unless we overhaul the penal system.''

The New Komeito, a junior partner in the three-party LDP coalition and a critic of the death penalty, also favors a review of the penal system.

Komeito judiciary experts are in particular unhappy about the gap in the penal system for serious crimes and wants the government to consider the introduction of life imprisonment without parole.

Under the current penal system, a judge has only three choices in punishing a criminal convicted of a serious crime: a maximum jail term (of up to 15 years, or 20 years in case of multiple crimes), an ''indefinite'' jail term (where convicts have been released on parole after serving 20 years on average), or a death penalty.

Officials in the Justice Ministry favor lengthening the maximum jail term as a deterrent against serious crimes, but are skeptical about the idea of life imprisonment without parole.

''(Life imprisonment without parole) is not a good idea since it allows no room for prisons to serve as a corrective institution,'' one senior official in the ministry's Criminal Affairs Bureau said.

On commercial crimes, Justice Ministry officials say they feel an overhaul of the penal code is overdue as the current penal system is based on administrative penalties, which has lost its effectiveness as the government deregulates the economy.