Sunday, January 18, 2009

Japanese jury system

As many of you know, I am teaching private English lessons to adult Japanese in Kagoshima.

Recently, I started teaching a new student with a very impressive background. He graduated from the University of Tokyo School of Law and is now working as an associate judge at the Kagoshima District Court. Although I'm the one teaching him English, I too learned a lot about Japan from him.

For instance, today we were talking about the Japanese legal system and the upcoming introduction of the jury system in the country in June.

Here's how the system works:
Nationals over 20 will be summoned for jury duty (and will be paid at most 10,000 yen per day for their service). Six individuals for every case. In Japan, there are three judges in every court, and along with the six jury members, the group will decide on the type and length of punishment that will be given to the offender. Each individual's vote carries equal weight.

Cool. I learned something today :P

2 comments:

Thunderthud said...

Sounds like an interesting system. People on jury duty in the US just get a token payment barely sufficient to cover their transportation costs.

Booyah! said...

I wonder how the Japanese people will receive this new system :D