I want my MTV. . .
At the beginning of last month we reported about how the Japanese court system was being transformed into a type of jury system where accused will be judged by their peers. In many countries, this would be hailed as a progressive move that protects citizens against falling victim to judicial whim, while giving them the means to directly influence how they are governed.
But this is Japan, and the people who live in this particular country seem to want no part of any of the above.
A government survey on public awareness of the new of the system that was conducted in February indicates that more than 70% of those polled said they have no interest in participating as a jury member.
The most popular reasons chosen by those who do not want to participate were that it is difficult to determine whether a defendant is guilty, at 46.5 percent, and that they do not want to judge another person, at 46.4 percent.
Those who said they do not want to participate represented 75.4 percent of female respondents and 64.2 percent of male respondents, according to the survey results.
Perhaps people in Japan are afraid that jury duty might cut into their TV viewing time.
Poor Mari….she’s my favorite. If I ever become a j-pop singer and part of the...
Shes definitely at the top of my hot list.
perfeckt 10:10
This resistance to the jury system is very discouraging. A chance for ordinary citizens to participate and improve a Japanese public institution (has Hell frozen over?) and people are pissing on it. If these idiots think judging a case is too hard for their pea-brains they have no right to complain the next time a rape-murderer gets off with a slap on the wrist.
I would say something clever like “they’ll get the kind of justice system they deserve”, except that it’s the same justice system me and my children will have to live with.
April 18th, 2005 at 4:35 pmive known the 70% statistic for months now, i dont know why it suddenly became news. (a japanologist friend emailed me this yesterday).
You might want to consider that the question didn’t ask “do you want a jury system” it asked “do you wanna be on a jury”. Though I would hazard to guess that Japanese people are apathetic about the jury system anyway, I can see a large difference between endorsing a jury system and personalyl wanting to serve on one. I wonder if there are surveys in America asking if “you wanna be on a jury” and how many people say no.
April 18th, 2005 at 6:46 pmI think Americans take jury duty too lightly, but there is a difference in a jaded attitude there where the jury system has been working for 200 years and public resistance here in Japan where the idea is new and public apathy could leave it stillborn.
Where is the vast right-wing LDP-bureaucracy-Imperial Household-media conspiracy everyone talks about? Seems like they could do everyone a good turn by brainwashing the Japanese public into supporting the jury system.
April 19th, 2005 at 1:11 amI think part of the problem is that the Japanese government springs some reforms on people with little or no warning and very little effort to explain the system or build a consensus. Stuff like this just comes out of nowhere, and people are bound to be disconcerted by radical change.
Another one came out with the recent recommendations on amending the Constitution. Everyone is talking about Article 9, but the panel also recommended rearranging the prefectural system of government into larger jurisdictions. This is as if the Americans were discussing a major constitutional issue, and someone said, by the way, there’s only going to be 20 states from now on.
April 19th, 2005 at 11:14 am