ROMA – Japan, together with the United States – we read in an article published by Hands off Cain – remains the only nation among industrialized democracies and members of the G7 to practice the death penalty. The country holds around 106 people awaiting execution by hanging, with an average wait of up to decades for convictions to be reviewed or executed.
A way of “doing justice” with ancient origins. Capital punishment in the Land of the Rising Sun has ancient origins, although the first abolition had already taken place in 724 at the hands of Emperor Sh?mu, under the influence of Buddhism. The practice was later resumed and since the Japanese penal code came under Western influence during the Meiji era, it has authorized the death penalty for the “most heinous” crimes. In 1945, during the occupation by the United States, in fact, extreme punishment was maintained within the judicial system.
46 years on death row as an innocent man. Today more than ever, capital execution is the subject of numerous debates in the country and its “appropriateness” has also been questioned in recent weeks by the case of Iwao Hakamada, an 88-year-old Japanese native of Shizuoka, acquitted of murder charges and released after spending 46 years on death row. Hakamada, a former boxer, was convicted in 1968 of killing his employer, as well as his family, at the miso soybean paste factory where he worked.
Last September he was found innocent. In 2014 he was released due to the emergence of new DNA evidence that cast doubt on the reliability of his initial conviction, until last September 26 a new trial established Hakamada’s innocence and the falsification by the investigators of some initial evidence that had led to his arrest. “The authority added bloodstains and hid the items in the miso tub well after the incident had occurred,” said Judge Kunii Koshi. Prosecutors decided not to appeal the acquittal.
But the Justice Minister said it would be “inappropriate” to abolish capital punishment. The former boxer’s case soon sparked criticism of the country’s justice and sentencing system. The president of the Japan Bar Association, Reiko Fuchigami, urged the government and parliament to take measures to abolish executions and streamline judicial processes. “The Hakamada case clearly shows the cruelty of the unjust death penalty and the tragedy should never happen again.” Current Justice Minister Hideki Makihara responded that it would be “inappropriate” to abolish capital punishment. The Japanese bishops also renewed their request for abolition after Hakamada’s acquittal: “we would like to invite Japanese society to once again consider the merits and demerits of the death penalty”, said Archbishop of Tokyo Tarcisio Kikuchi Isao, president of the Episcopal Conference.
The ironies about the importance of the Minister of Justice. Precisely on the same issue, Makihara’s predecessor, Yasuhiro Hanashi, was forced to resign due to some statements made on capital executions in 2022. According to the national newspaper Asahi Shimbun, in fact, Hanashi would have joked about the importance of the role of the Minister of Justice who is responsible, by Japanese law, for authorizing executions, underlining how in fact that was the only circumstance in which the Minister of justice gained national attention.
The last hanging occurred in 2022. The country’s last recorded execution occurred in July 2022, when a man who killed seven people in a violent truck collision and stabbing in Tokyo’s Akihabara electronics district in 2008 was hanged. After Hanashi’s resignation, during 2023, Japan no longer carried out hangings, ‘thanks’ to the country’s international exposure in its role as presidency of the G7, but also to the growing internal pressure and rising discontent against the ministry of justice, after some revelations emerged that prison guards had attacked inmates.
A crack in the reputation of the Japanese judicial system. But the case of Hakamada, probably the oldest prisoner in the history of modern democratic judicial systems, to have awaited his sentence on death row before being acquitted, opens up an unprecedented crack in the reputation of Japanese justice within and outside its borders. From the post-war period to today, in fact, the Japanese population has generally shown trust in the national justice courts. You can count on one hand the number of death row inmates who have been granted a new trial, only four.
A case that creates an important precedent. Hakamada is only the fifth death row inmate to be granted a retrial in Japan’s post-war history. The case could constitute an important precedent for Japanese justice, where for the first time the infallibility, but above all the legitimacy, of the use of the death penalty is being put under public scrutiny.
* Diana Zogno – Hands Off Cain
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