Foley Square

Three Year Plan

Today I worked to put together a three-year work-plan for our activities under the grant. Conferences, round-tables, fellowships, and assorted "capacity-building" exercise to try to increase the number and effectiveness of China's meager nonprofits. In the end, the success of our program will be determined by how well we satisfy our donor. This work is not demand-driven. Few if any people in these parts come to us and say, there is a pressing need for your work so please provide it. Instead, it is the organization -- acting as the proxy of the donor -- which approaches poor organizations and says, in effect, we have a pot of money here and we'd like to share if with you if you agree to co-operate with us on certain projects.

Visiting Legal Aid Office for Migrant Workers

Saiban-in Begins

Imagine if this week Americans were relieved of jury duty and henceforth criminal trial verdicts would be decided only by professional judges. The obverse is true in Japan. The country  this week reintroduced a jury system after a lapse of 65 years. Since 1944 all criminal cases have been decided by professional judges. Now cases will be decided by mixed panels of three professional judges and six randomly selected citizens.

Is this rather remarkable story being covered in other parts of the world? If the Japanese authoritiese deem the new saiban-in system successful, I think it could become a model for other parts of Asia and could enhance human rights.

A Year Later

Wow, it's been almost a year since I lasted updated this blog. A year ago I was still in Japan doing occasional consulting and speaking about the country's new saiban-in system, now slated to begin in about two months. Shortly thereafter I moved to China to work with a nonprofit called International Bridges to Justice to start a new program to start criminal clinical teaching at China's law schools. My original assignment was six months. During that time I became fascinated with the culture, the nascent legal system, and the dramatic choices government and people confront in this vast complex country. So I decided to stay on. I'm now directing the China program for the Public Interest Law Institute. I started in December, and we still don't have our office space renovated. We face many challenges, and if I can accomplish perhaps 40% of what we want that will be a real success. But how does one measure the impact of human rights work. Indeed, is human rights just another western religion? If it is am I just among the latest wave of missionaries to come to China?

Article on Trial Techniques for Japanese Lawyers

In November I gave a lecture to the the Daini Tokyo Bar Association concerning American trial techniques. Lawyer and law professor Satoru Shinomiya adapted the lecture for publicaton. It appears in this month's Niben Frontier and can be found here:

Download NibenArticle.pdf .

Good question

During the Q & A at Toyo University's conference on managing saiban-in stress a Japanese audience member raised an interesting point: "If the purpose of a jury system is to protect citizens from the government, isn't it a little strange that the government is being asked to promote it? Why aren't there more grassroots organizations promoting the saiban-in system?"

Citizens to Citizens

Japan is starting a jury system in 2009, but polls show that the prospect of jury service intimidates many Japanese; other polls show that 80 percent of them don't want to be on juries. I hosted a program in Tokyo recently in which two Americans -- Michelle Arnot of New York and Judith Farrar of California -- shared their jury experiences with Japanese college students. In this excerpt the former jurors answer a student's question about how they would feel if they were called upon to judge a person accused of mass murder. A second student expresses his strong dissatisfaction with a Japanese law that will forbid citizens from discussing the deliberation process after the case is over.

First Thing We Do, Let's Get Some More Lawyers

The Asahi Shimbun today condemned efforts by some local bar associations to cancel a government plan to increase the number of lawyers in Japan.

The question that must be asked here is whether the serious problem of areas without enough lawyers has been fixed. Each district under the jurisdiction of a court needs at least two attorneys because both the plaintiff and the defendant need legal counsel. Of the 203 districts under the jurisdiction of a local branch of a district court, however, three have no practicing lawyer at all, and 21 have only one. In 2006, the Japan Legal Support Center known as Houterasu was created as part of the judicial reform to offer legal counsel to citizens across the nation. But the organization has so far secured only one-third of the 300 lawyers it needs to provide the services it is supposed to offer. In spring next year, a new saiban-in citizen judge system will be launched for citizen participation in the judicial process. Court hearings will be held day after day under the system to shorten trials. A shortage of lawyers would be clear.

Buddhism and Justice in Japan

Sensoji Temple, originally uploaded by robertprecht.

In the spare lobby of the Supreme Court of Japan, an American lawyer notices a small statue. He draws near, sees the form holding what appears to be scales, and  feels certain that it is a statue of the familiar Lady Justice that graces so many courthouses in the U.S. But he is wrong. It is a statue of the Buddha, and the expression on the face is one of serenity.

Hamada Kunio, a former Justice of the Supreme Court of Japan, recently delivered a paper about the rule of law in his country. He had this to say about the role of Buddhism: 

In Japanese, the term “law” is “ho-ritsu”. The term “ho” came from a Buddhism term dharma (damma in plural), meaning teachings (not necessarily commands) of Buddha, and “ritsu” from vinaya, meaning regulations for groups of Buddhism followers to comply with in their daily lives in their groups. In my view, Buddhism, which has been accepted in Japan for more than fourteen hundred years, is [the] least aggressive religion or teaching. It is kind to humans, other beings and the environment as well. Traditionally, there are said to be eight million (8,000,000) gods in Japan. Believers in monotheism (meaning a religion which holds that there is one and only supreme God in the world) represent a very small percentage of the nation. These traditions in Japan permit Japanese people to pursue quite flexible spiritual as well as secular lives. This may help explain the Japanese tendency for flexible (or convenient) interpretation of rules to fit the prevailing conditions rather than trying to comply with rules rigidly or otherwise changing rules immediately if it is not possible for many to comply with them.

For me it will be very interesting to see how these principles play out in the saiban-in system.

Bengoshi create opening statements

Lawyers in Fukuoka work in teams to create opening statements.