Giving detainees breathing room
(From The Japan Times March 14 issue)

未決囚の人権を守れ

    The nation has 114 detention and branch detention houses. But 98.3 percent of arrested criminal suspects and criminal-trial defendants are held in police cells. Only 1.7 percent are placed in genuine detention facilities.

    This means that the conditions in which most criminal suspects and defendants are held are highly questionable under today's human rights standards. The basis for this peculiar situation, which has existed for the past 98 years, is the rather obscure Article 1, Section 3 of the 1908 former Prison Law, which permits the use of lockups attached to police stations as substitute "prisons."

    Under this arrangement, police officers may interrogate suspects at their pleasure, since the facilities are inside police compounds.

    Lawyers and human rights activists have pointed out that investigators have plenty of time to extract confessions that suit scenarios put forth by the police and then write statements based on such confessions.

    Instances of false accusations have arisen in this way. A well-known example is the 1951 Yakai murder case in Yamaguchi Prefecture, in which an elderly couple were murdered. After seven trials, four of the five defendants in 1968 were found to have been victims of false charges. In the 1980s, four death-row inmates were found innocent in retrials on the grounds of false charges.

    To Japan's disgrace, the existing detention arrangement has been criticized twice by the U.N. Committee for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

    After the Justice Ministry and the National Police Agency established an experts' committee on the treatment of detainees, committee members had a heated discussion on the use of police cells as substitute detention facilities. But the opinion has prevailed that such facilities are necessary for efficient police work, and the ministry supported that view.

    As a result, the committee has come up with compromise recommendations that include measures to protect and enhance the human rights of detainees while allowing police to continue using police cells for detention.

    Other recommendations are that police officers assigned to investigation, including interrogation, must not be engaged in detention-related work.

    The new bill, to be based on the recommendations, would provide a legal basis of sorts for substitute detention facilities. It would amount to a revision of the law on criminal facilities and prisoner treatment, enacted last year to improve human rights protection for prisoners.

    The bill would differentiate the legal status of detainees from that of prisoners. The committee's recommendations call for allowing lawyers and detainees to communicate by telephone or fax, and letting lawyers visit detainees at night and on holidays.

    Another proposal is for setting up in each prefecture a detention-facility inspection committee composed of attorneys and other citizens. Committee members would be charged with visiting and meeting detainees to promote the transparency of the detention process.

    There is also a proposal for a mechanism allowing detainees to express complaints to the prefectural public-safety commission, which oversees the police in each prefecture.

    At present, communications between lawyers and detainees are limited to meetings and letters. Communication by telephone or fax, even if lawyers must to go to designated police stations or public prosecutor's offices to begin the communication, would save lawyers lots of time.

    Smooth communication between lawyers and detainees will become all the more important in May 2009 when hearings are expected to be held almost every day for defendants following the introduction of a lay judge system. Citizens will sit with judges to preside over trials in serious crimes such as murder and homicide.

    The new bill should incorporate as many of the committee's proposals as possible. For its part, the government should address, in earnest and as quickly as possible, the most important principle of all -- holding detainees in detention houses operated under the auspices of the Justice Ministry, away from police investigators.

The Japan Times Weekly
March 18, 2006
(C) All rights reserved

    全国に114ヵ所の拘置所、拘置支所があるが、未決囚の98.3%は警察の留置場で拘禁されており、拘置所に収監されているのはわずか1.7%である。

    旧監獄法（1908年施行）の第1条第3項は警察の留置所の代用監獄としての使用を認めている。これにより、警察当局は容疑者を思うままに取り調べ、当局のシナリオ通りの自白調書を作成できた。

    冤罪事件として有名な、1951年の八海事件（山口県で老夫婦が殺害された）では、有罪判決を受けた被告5人のうち4人が7回の裁判後、1968年に無罪判決を勝ち取った。1980年代には、4人の死刑囚が再審で無罪判決を受けた。

    日本の代用監獄制度は国際人権規約に関する国連委員会により重ねて批判を受けている。法務省と警察庁が設置した有識者会議は、代用監獄の使用を認めながら、未決囚の人権保護の強化を提言した。

    提言に基づく法案は、未決囚と受刑者の法的地位を区別し、未決囚については弁護士との電話、ファクスによる連絡が可能になり、弁護士の負担が軽減される。弁護士と未決囚の円滑な連絡は、殺人などの凶悪犯罪を裁く「裁判員制度」が予定通り09年5月に導入されると、さらに重要になる。また第三者による留置施設視察委員会の設立や未決囚から公安委員会への苦情申し立てを認めるなど透明性の確保に努める。

    法案は、有識者会議の提言をできるだけ採用すべきである。政府は容疑者を留置場でなく拘置所に拘留する原則を確立すべきだ。