Japan’s criminal justice system is in the international spotlight this week with the release of a film produced by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) entitled ‘Presumed Guilty - Creating False Confessions‘ in which “former defendants talk about how they were forced to confess by investigators during interrogations.”

Tokyo lawyer Shinichiro Koike said “I hope many people [...] will watch this film and realize that confessions are ‘created.’ And I expect it to contribute to improving Japan’s judicial system.”

Koike, the lawyer, who has been working to improve the criminal judicial system for the past 30 years, said, ‘‘I have come to a new realization our system is in a terrible state than I thought through producing the film.’’

Even if a person is summoned by police on a voluntary basis, he or she is sometimes questioned for 14 hours a day without a break, and is scrutinized even when going to the bathroom, according to Koike.

‘‘Under these circumstances, anybody, even me, a lawyer, would be exhorted to make confessions,’’ he said.

More details available at Japan Times, which has the same article.

An odd report in today’s Mainichi reveals that “a summary court judge resigned last year after being reprimanded for molesting an employee of a sex shop in Kobe”.

The incident occurred in October last year, and the resignation followed a month later. The “60-year-old judge” is said to have bitten a woman who worked in sex shop in Kobe.

The 60-year-old judge at the Hirakata Summary Court bit the lip of a Kobe sex shop employee in her 20s on Oct. 6, last year, injuring her, according to the district court. He is also accused of demanding excessive sexual services from her.

Excessive? I had no idea a sex shop worker was the same as a ’sex worker’. Surely any demand for sexual services was ‘excessive’? And how the lip-biting came about… the mind boggles.

Though he could’ve been charged with ‘indecent assault resulting in injury’, he paid the woman compensation to the tune of ¥1.7 million in an out-of-court settlement, so that, as far as the authorities were concerned, was that. So no messy paperwork to sort out. Everyone’s a winner.

A court in Tokyo has slapped the father of a young child with an order to pay 360,000 yen to a neighbor who complained that the sound of the child’s footsteps constitute noise pollution.

“The footsteps surpassed tolerable limits,” Yasushi Nakamura, judge at the Tokyo District Court, said in handing down the ruling.

The plaintiff, who lives in Tokyo’s Itabashi-ku, filed a suit against the father demanding 2.4 million yen in damages because of disturbances caused by the loud footsteps of the toddler who moved into the second floor of the same condo complex around April 2004. His wife also suffered from insomnia because of the noise.

The plaintiff had complained about the annoying sound to the father of the 3-to-4-year-old toddler, but the father ignored him. The plaintiff then placed a noise meter in his home and recorded that the footsteps upstairs measured 50 to 65 decibels.

Lucie Blackman was working as a bar hostess in Tokyo in 2000 when she was unfortunate enough to meet Joji Obara. He allegedly abducted, drugged, raped and murdered her, before dismembering her body which he then dumped in a cave not far from his home. Her remains were uncovered the following year.

Faced with questions about her death, Obara claimed that there was nothing to link him with it. Japan’s much-vaunted 98% conviction rate is down to judges relying on confessions. And despite six months of police questioning, Obara wasn’t forthcoming. This, coupled with an investigation that is now famous for being lacking in almost every degree, meant that while Obara was charged with abduction, rape resulting in death, mutilation and abandonment of a corpse, he wasn’t actually charged with murder.

Peculiar then, that Obara should have offered £200,000 to the family of Australian Carita Ridgway, another of his alleged victims. Then in April last year, he offered Jane Steare, Lucie’s mother, the same amount. Later that month, he is said to have offered Tim Blackman, Lucie’s father, more than a quarter of a million pounds on condition that he refuse to give evidence in court. All these offers were turned down. However, this week, Tim Blackman was offered ¥100 million (around half a million pounds), which he apparently accepted. It’s not for me to judge his decision, but it throws up a couple of interesting points.

To any sane-minded person, these extraordinary offers must clearly be admissions of guilt. Or perhaps Obara is convinced he’ll be convicted despite his protestations of innocence. But why would you offer such vast sums of money to people you claim no connection to? Tim Blackman, in a statement, said he accepted the money as “condolence money”, and Obara’s defence team said he’d sent the money out of a feeling of “moral responsibility.”

“Moral responsibility”? Unless you’re guilty, why assume the responsibility? And either way, isn’t it a bit late for that.

And extraordinary then, that while Obara was this morning sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of drugging and raping 9 women, he was acquitted of all charges relating to Lucie Blackman.

Once more, questions will be asked about how the police managed to botch this case so badly. But was it the botched investigation or the “condolence money” that led to his acquittal on those charges? Did the judge feel the police hadn’t given enough evidence to ensure conviction, or was the money seen as recompense enough?

A few days ago, it was reported that Yamanashi prefectural police had managed to leak information about investigations “including personal information on over 500 individuals including the name of a sex crime victim” onto the internet.

It’s happened time and time again in the offices of folks holding sensitive information. And the cause of it has often proved to be the p2p file-sharing application Winny (often in conjunction with the virus Antinny).

Last year, the Yomiuri reported that a domestic Internet service provider sent “an unprecedented letter to users who [had] downloaded confidential data on mentally ill patients in Takaoka, Toyama Prefecture, asking them to delete the relevant file”.

The Japan Times reported last summer that “sensitive information about Japanese power plants [data regarding security arrangements at a thermoelectric power plant run by the Chubu Electric Power in Owase, Mie prefecture] has leaked online from a virus-infected computer for the second time in less than four months”.

You might recall similar stories involving airlines, local police forces, mobile phone companies, the National Defense Agency even.

Therefore it’s hardly surprising that many organisations banned the use of Winny (though why p2p software wasn’t already forbidden in offices, I don’t know). The Mainichi reported that “Yamanashi Prefectural Police banned the use of any file-exchange programs in their offices in June 2005. All officers and clerical workers submitted written pledges not to use such software.”

Meanwhile in a completely unrelated story, Saitama District Court last week squashed a suit filed by a concerned citizens’ group who “sought deletion of their personal data from the Juki Net national residency registry network, claiming it infringes upon their privacy in violation of the Constitution.”

The judge Toshikuni Kondo, who apparently neither gets out much nor reads newspapers, said in the ruling, “The Juki Net is needed for administration. There is no substantial danger of data leakage to third parties. The operation of the network does not represent an unlawful infringement of privacy rights.”

Forgive my earlier scepticism. I’m convinced.

Back in June, we reported on the strange case of a Japanese man who was arrested for kicking the legs of women while wearing shoes that had nails and the metal cutters from tape dispensers sticking out of their toes.

At the time of his arrest, he was quoted as saying:

I wanted to injure the legs of a woman with a good figure.

Well the man was arrested red-handed and brought to justice, and the court handed down its ruling the other day.

The judge called the mans crime “selfish and mean,” and said that the man “gratified himself with sexual excitement from seeing women suffering.”

So what was his sentence?

2-1/2 years in prison. . . suspended for five years!

So the guy effectively walks.

Oh, yeah. . . But they did confiscate two pairs of his shoes!?!