Japan Press Weekly

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2016 December 21 - 2017 January 3 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Grant for legal trainees will be reinstated thanks to persistent movement

The Justice Ministry on December 19 decided to resume a system in December 2017 to provide grants for legal trainees’ living expenses for the first time in six years after the ministry terminated the previous system at the end of 2011.

The Japanese Communist Party has since taken up this issue in the Diet many times, protesting against the abolition of the grant system and demanding its reinstatement.

According to the ministry, the new system will be appled to legal apprentices starting their one-year training course from next year. The amount of a basic grant will be 135,000 yen per month.

However, the legal apprentices in the previous grant system monthly received about 200,000 yen in addition to travel expenses. Compared to this, the new grant system has a lot of problems that need to be addressed. Also, remedial action needs to be taken to compensate those who completed their pre-legal professional training over the past six years.

Lawyer Kayano Yui, 31, who represents a network of young legal experts and law students, said, “The new system is far from satisfactory but it’s a positive step forward. I hope the ministry will find the best way to redress the unequal treatment received by those who had been left without any grants during the past six years.”

Past related article:
> More than half of Dietmembers agree to reinstate grant program for legal apprentices [January 21, 2016]