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Victim Participation in Japan: When Therapeutic Jurisprudence Meets Prosecutor Justice∙
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2016
Abstract
This article examines how a therapeutic perspective on victim participation has been conceptualized and implemented in criminal trials in Japan after procedural reforms in 2000 and 2008. Findings are discussed with reference to therapeutic jurisprudence studies on victim participation and relevant literature on Japanese criminal justice. Analysis of policy documents, survey data, interviews, and minutes of Ministry of Justice “expert meetings” reveals how the therapeutic needs of victims and the therapeutic effects of victim participation in court proceedings have been understood and conceptualized based on generalized common-sense assumptions of legal practitioners. In court, participants’ reference to victims’ wellbeing and recovery puts pressure on judges to impose harsher punishment than usual, while reinforcing the position of prosecutors. The adopted therapeutic perspective, combined with traditionally expected displays of remorse, furthermore has the effect of limiting the defence’s ability to argue facts and circumstances favourable to the defendant.
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- Research Article
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- © Cambridge University Press and KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Footnotes
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Jennifer Connelly for their valuable critique and comments, and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations for kindly making available unpublished survey data.
University lecturer. Correspondence to Erik Herber, Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), School of Asian Studies (SAS), Faculty of Law, Van Vollenhoven Institute for Metajuridica, Law and Governance, Leiden University, P.O.Box 9515 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. E-mail address: [email protected].
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