COURTS OF JUSTICE IN JAPAN

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2094, 31 May 1907, Page 1

COURTS OF JUSTICE IN JAPAN

As Japan lias borrowed its naval training', from England and its military system from Germany, so it has introduced "its judicial arrangements from Franco, says tho author of Signs, and Portents in the Far East, No juries are employed, and long eross r questioning of prisoners and defendants by the Bench, are familiar features of the proceedings in court. The bar is exclusively Japanese, and its members enjoy much consideration md make large incomes. They represent clients, address the court, and suggest to the judge questions to put to tho witnesses, but they do no examining. On the other hand, admissions which they make are held to

have been made by their'-clients. The court consists always of several judges sitting as a bench. There is also in each court a public prosecutor, who represents the Crown in criminal cases, and watches the public interest in civil ones. The accused is always expected to confess, and" so much weight is attached to his doing so that, lip to thirty years ago, torture was employed as a regular means to this. end. I saw .attractive kitchens where savoury rice and vegetables were being’cooked'for'the convicts, and was shown' the varying measures of food given to each individual to accord with his behaviour; for the Japanoso hold, quite wisely, that violence and misbehaviour are best met by reducing ' the’ rice supply. The means of discipline, I gathered, was held rather in : terrorem than practised habitually, since most of the prisoners' looked well-fed and cheerful. The whole organisation, from tho secret chambers ’of preliminary judicial investigation, .where the accused, is tried by every, test but that of the opinion of his peers, to the glazed hospital wards of the prison, where the consumptive criminal is given every luxury except fresh air, struck me as over-elaborated' in faithful imitation of not always perfect European models. It represents, however,. a. surprisingly high standard, considering-tho shortness of the time which: elapsed since its introduction from the West; and its liiiiitations are typical of the stage which Japan has now reached as a State civilised upon Western pattern.