Japan Goes Over 2 Years without Execution

Tokyo, Nov. 27 (Jiji Press)--More than two years have passed since Japan previously conducted an execution, as calls for the abolition of capital punishment in the country grow again, following the acquittal of former death row inmate Iwao Hakamada in a retrial.

At the end of October, there were a total of 107 inmates on death row in the country.

Under the country’s Penal Code, death sentences are carried out by hanging upon the order of the justice minister.

The Code of Criminal Procedure states that the order should be issued within six months after the ruling is finalized, but this is interpreted as an advisory provision.

Between 2012 and 2021, the average period from the finalization of a death sentence to its execution was about seven years and nine months, according to the Justice Ministry.

Fundamental review and moratorium

Earlier this month, a group including ruling and opposition lawmakers, a former prosecutor general and a former commissioner general of the National Police Agency released a statement saying that Japan's capital punishment system should not continue as it is. The group called for a fundamental review of the system and a suspension of it until a conclusion is reached.

An expert panel under the Justice Ministry also began discussions this month on the country's retrial system, including on the possibility of not executing those seeking retrials.

According to the group, 144 countries around the world have effectively or unequivocally abolished the death penalty. Of the 38 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only three — Japan, the United States and South Korea — still have the penalty. But South Korea has suspended executions, and the U.S. has declared a federal moratorium.

Only the Japanese government remains reticent about the abolition of the death penalty.

"Imposing the death penalty on those who have committed heinous crimes is unavoidable," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a news conference this month.

The last execution in Japan took place in July 2022, when Tomohiro Kato, convicted of the 2008 random killings in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, was put to death.

The justice minister at the time was Yoshihisa Furukawa.

None of his successors have ordered an execution.

Source: nippon.com, The Jiji Press, Ltd., The Japan Times, November 27, 2024

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