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Restraints on Japanese police

7 Jun 2008
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I'm interested in constitutional or other legal rights of a person suspected of a serious crime versus the police.

Are there any restraints on search and seizure of personal property of the suspect?

Can the police hold a suspect without charges being filed? If so, for how long?

If a suspect says he wants a lawyer, do the police have to cease an interrogation and allow the suspect to get a lawyer?
 
Can the police hold a suspect without charges being filed? If so, for how long?

"In Japan, where the police can hold you in an actual prison and question you for 23 days without charging you with a crime, habeas corpus has been converted into a procedure used by parents against each other in child custody disputes."

Source

Art 34 of the Japanese Constitution deals with habeas corpus. Will see if I can find more later.

THE CONSTITUTION OF JAPAN
 
How many times have I already typed this up on this forum in the last decade?
 
From the Japanese Constitution (thanks, Thomas):


Article 31. No person shall be deprived of life or liberty, nor shall any other criminal penalty be imposed, except according to procedure established by law.

Article 32. No person shall be denied the right of access to the courts.

Article 33. No person shall be apprehended except upon warrant issued by a competent judicial officer which specifies the offense with which the person is charged, unless he is apprehended, the offense being committed.

Article 34. No person shall be arrested or detained without being at once informed of the charges against him or without the immediate privilege of counsel; nor shall he be detained without adequate cause; and upon demand of any person such cause must be immediately shown in open court in his presence and the presence of his counsel.

So, the police should not be able to imprison you for 23 days. Or is this simply another case of the Japanese not following their own laws?
 
Mike Cash, you can type something a million times, but without some authority, like the Constitution, it would be worth something only to yourself.
 
Thank you for the link, and I didn't realize that some of my questions were talked about so recently.

As I feared, though, you make a number of statements there without providing any authority. The authority I'm looking at, thanks to Thomas, is the Japanese Constitution, which says, "No person shall be arrested or detained without being at once informed of the charges against him or without the immediate privilege of counsel. . ."

The letter of the Constitution above seems contrary to your interpretation; but perhaps I should take that up in the other thread and stick to my own narrow questions here.

I'm more interested in what the J-police actually do and are allowed by the courts to get away with, than with the letter of the Constitution. Why the courts permit the police to violate the Constitution (if they do) would be an interesting question, but not one I'm asking about now.
 
There's no constitutional conflict there. The Constitution doesn't prohibit post-arrest detention and there are statutes which provide for it.

If you can read Japanese I will recommend some good books.

Start with this one
 
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The Constitution says "arrested or detained." And my I asked about pre-arrest detention.

My wife just now got back from visiting family so I'll have to take this up later. Thanks. I only remember hiragana/katakana, have lost memory of most kanji, so I can't read Japanese.
 
There is no pre-arrest detention.The maximum 23 days hold thing is after arrest. I thought I explained that in the post I linked to. Perhaps I didn't, but I do know I at least mentioned it.

That isn't to say there is no pre-arrest questioning, though. Are you familiar with 任意同行 (にんいどうこう)?
 
In the US they can hold you until trial after arrest and filing of charges, which may be more than a year or two or longer, unless you can make bail. What happens to all the Japanese accused felons who are arrested and get out after 23 days, then flee the law? Wouldn't be any reason to bother with bail if you automatically get out 23 days following arrest and filing of charges.

Do you mean they can hold you up to 23 days after arrest and before the filing of charges with a court?

I heard a rumor that the J-police may hold you up to 23 days WITHOUT arrest, and can't verify whether that is true. Links to authorities in English would be helpful to me, as my Japanese isn't very good.

I'm not interested in voluntary submission to police interrogation; in the US, you can leave at any time unless they arrest you. If they arrest you, they can still question you unless you ask for a lawyer, in which case the questions must stop and you must be provided with access to a lawyer immediately. Again, does it work similarly in Japan, or can they continue to question you without providing access to a lawyer, after you ask for one?

I now know the Constitution of Japan says they can't do these things, but as I said I'm more interested in actual practice than in legal requirements the police may ignore. If anyone here can answer my questions, I'd appreciate it.
 
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Did you read any of the information on Debito's site? I think it comprehensively answers the questions you are asking.
What happens to all the Japanese accused felons who are arrested and get out after 23 days
This is the point of all the links we've been sending you. The police in Japan have a near 100% conviction rate. There is virtually no one who gets out after being detained by police. The methods they use to coerce a confession are designed to alter consciousness to the point where obviously innocent people will confess to things they did not do. The courts view their role as protecting the public harmony, not protecting the accused or making sure the accused get a fair trial.
I'm not interested in voluntary submission to police interrogation
Nobody is interested in this, Roland. But again, as the information in the links state, in Japan just "being foreign" is sufficient grounds for police suspicion. Refusing to submit to interrogation is sufficient grounds for being arrested for obstruction of police duty.
You are looking for things that don't exist in Japan. Protection from arbitrary police authority, arbitrary questioning, arbitrary detention, false accusation, confession under duress, etc... All of these things exist in some measure on the law books, but the Japanese take their policing and prosecuting very seriously, more seriously than the rights of the accused are taken. As Debito says, innocent until proven guilty is a concept that doesn't generate much sympathy here. Its more like, "the police stopped you, so you must be guilty of something".
The links to Debito's site, and the links from that site all point to the information you are looking for.
 
The 23 days is the maximum period allowed between arrest and prosecutors having to either file charges or release.
 
Thanks. I did read Debito before, and have done so again. This poorly constructed sentence is of interest: "Unlike citizens, Japanese police do not need probable cause or clear suspicion of a crime in order to stop foreigners and ask personal questions."

Assuming the sentence doesn't mean what it literally says, and guessing at what the writer really means, I don't see where the Japanese Constitution applies only to citizens. Am I making a mistake in assuming that the J-Constitution trumps everything else, like statutes and treaties, as in the US?
 
The sentence means what (I assume) the writer intends. The Japanese Constitution applies to the 国民 (kokumin) meaning quite literally the people of Japan. It does not apply to all residents. This is a deliberate amendment made to the US draft of the Japanese Constitution by the rulers of Japan in the immediate post-war period. The US draft used the word 人民 (people, citizens), but the post-war Japanese cabinet changed the word to the more conservative, nationalistic 国民. For more background on this I highly recommend John Dower's Embracing Defeat.
 
Thanks. I did read Embracing Defeat, but don't remember that part.

If not the Constitution, then what provides the legal standards for treatment of non-citizens?
 
Not a lawyer, but my guess is that local, prefectural, or national law applies, and if the accused (foreigner) feels his human rights are being violated he/she can take it up with Amnesty International, I suppose.
 
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