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2024 March 6 - 12 TOP3 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Cross-party parliamentarians’ league formed to reform retrial system to save victims of wrongful convictions

The inaugural meeting of a cross-party parliamentarians’ league, which aims to revise the current retrial system without delay so that victims of false accusation will be rescued swiftly, took place on March 11 in the Diet building.

Together with Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Motomura Nobuko, lawyer-turned JCP lawmakers Yamazoe Taku and Nihi Sohei (Upper House) attended the inaugural meeting. As of March 11, 134 lawmakers of both ruling and opposition parties joined in the league.

The league’s charter points out that the miscarriage of justice constitutes one of the gravest violations of human rights, and states that the cross-party group will work to achieve an early amendment of the provisions regarding retrials in the Criminal Procedure Code.

Invited to the meeting, former judge Murayama Hiroaki made a keynote speech. He referred to a retrial in the case of Hakamada Iwao who had been sentenced to death for the 1966 killing of four family members in Shizuoka Prefecture. In 2014 when Murayama was a Shizuoka District Court judge, he decided to grant a retrial to Hakamada. In 2023, his decision was finalized and Hakamada’s retrial finally started.

Murayama expressed his hope for an immediate revision of legislation regarding retrials in order to save victims of wrongful convictions.

Past related article:
> Criminal retrial system should be revised to save victims of false accusation [March 15, 2023]