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RIGHTS-JAPAN: Naming Hanged Convicts – Step Towards Reform

Catherine Makino

TOKYO, Dec 11 2007 (IPS) - When Japan’s justice ministry departed from norm to name three convicts it hanged this month, many here saw it as a sign that the country was now prepared to adopt more humane policies towards capital punishment.

For the first time in the history of the country’s judicial system, since World War 11, the ministry disclosed the names and crimes of three convicts hanged on Dec. 7. The ministry never even acknowledged executions, until November 1998 when it began announcing that prisoners had been put to death while withholding identities and exact date of dispatch.

Amnesty International (AI) in Japan cautiously welcomed the news while condemning the executions.

“We feel it’s the first step toward breaking through the secrecy of Japan’s execution system,” said Misaki Yagishi, country head of AI. “However, we are against executions. We are sorry the number of those hanged this year made it the highest number in more than a decade.” The three executions brought to nine the number of convicts hanged this year.

Ministry officials said they disclosed the names to soften criticism at home as well as overseas of being secretive, and at the request of the public and families of the victims.

‘’It is necessary to gain the understanding of bereaved families of the victims and the public over the appropriateness of executions,” Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama told the Judicial Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives. “It is painful to sign execution orders, but I understand that it must be undertaken in an orderly manner based on law. I signed knowing that it is a responsibility I cannot escape.

However, confusion and shock followed the disclosure of the names of the executed convicts among the committee members. In fact, Ritsuo Hosokawa, an opposition member of the Democratic Party of Japan, who was questioning Hatoyama, said he was “flabbergasted”. It is extremely unusual for a justice minister to admit in the parliament that there had been an execution.

The Dec.7 hangings were the first approved by Hatoyama, who created a public storm after taking office in August saying that executions should “be carried out systematically” and without involving the justice minister.

Pema Gyalpo, a professor at Toin University in Yokohama and advisor to the government described at as a political ploy by Hatoyama. “He is making a name for himself by doing something different. He is number two in seniority to be prime minister; he’s frustrated and wants to get his name known. He is playing to the media, and wants to be the topic, even if his position is unpopular.”

‘’He also wants to make trouble for Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on this issue. Once the names are disclosed, people will start asking why is this one being executed and this one isn’t,” Gyalpo said.

And there is a growing protest from international human rights groups. AI issued a statement saying: “While the names of the executed inmates were disclosed, the hangings were implemented suddenly, as usual without notifying the inmates, their families or anyone else.’’

“Japan has gone against the global trend to abolish the death penalty … In the United States, the number of executions and death sentences have gradually been declining, but not in Japan,’’ AI added in the statement.

Japan is the only member of the Group of Seven industrialised nations, other than the U.S., to maintain capital punishment. Currently there are 104 people on death row in Japan.

However, legal reform is slowly taking place in Japan. Experts say the disclosure of names could be a forerunner of planned reforms in 2009. The judges will be in charge of giving death sentences while a jury-style system will be adopted with judges and jurors having one vote each and cases decided by a majority.

Fukuda was told on the morning of Dec. 7 the decision to reveal the names of the executed prisoners. He was quoted by the media as saying he “endorsed the move because the feelings of bereaved relatives of the victims should be taken into account”.

The three executed prisoners were Hiroki Fukawa, 42, Seiha Fujima, 47, both hanged at the Tokyo Detention House, and Noboru Ikemoto, 74, who was hanged at the Osaka Detention House, according to the justice ministry.

Fujima fatally stabbed five people in 1981 and 1982, including a family of three in Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture. Fukawa asked for a loan from a 65-year-old woman in Tokyo in 1999, so that he could go on a date. When the woman refused, he stabbed her and her mother to death. In 1985, Ikemoto fatally shot three neighbors and injured another in Tokushima Prefecture. He thought they were harassing him by dumping their garbage in his garden.

Former Justice Minister Seiken Sugiura never signed any execution orders during his term of office from October 2005 to September 2006 saying his Buddhist faith went against the death penalty.

Hatoyama’s predecessor Jinen Nagase signed orders to execute 10 convicts, the largest number since March 1993. This shows the number of executions change depending on the belief or political stance of the justice minister of the day.