TIMES ONLINE: Capital punishment has been unofficially scrapped in Japan with the appointment of a left-wing justice minister who is an outspoken opponent of the country’s controversial system of secret executions.
Keiko Chiba, 61, a lawyer and former member of the Japan Socialist Party, has the final say in signing execution orders for the country’s 102 death-row inmates. Although she has declined to say explicitly whether or not she will authorise them, her 20-year record as an active death penalty abolitionist means that hangings will be put on hold after surging in the past three years.
“A moratorium is important, but also important is a public debate, and she has called for that too,” said Makoto Teranaka, executive director of Amnesty International Japan.
Japan is the only industrialised democracy, apart from the United States, to maintain capital punishment. Campaigners opposed to the death penalty also say that it is carried out in a manner designed to avoid public scrutiny.
Once final appeals have been exhausted, death-row inmates can meet only their lawyers and immediate family members. Hangings are usually carried out during parliamentary holidays to prevent the subject from being raised in parliament. The condemned prisoner is told of his imminent execution only a few hours before it is carried out. His family are informed afterwards, when they are invited to collect his remains. >>> Richard Lloyd Parry | Saturday, September 19, 2009
