Lower House Panel Approves Retrial System Reform Bill

A parliamentary panel in Japan has approved a government-submitted bill to reform the country's retrial system. The Judicial Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives passed the bill to revise the Code of Criminal Procedure by a majority vote, with support from the ruling coalition and Sanseito.

The passage came after the bill underwent revisions, including a supplementary provision stipulating that the prohibition on the use of evidence for purposes other than its intended one be subject to a regular review of the system every five years. The bill is expected to clear the Lower House and be enacted during the current Diet session ending in July.

The bill calls for prohibiting, in principle, prosecutors' appeals against court decisions to initiate retrials, widely seen as contributing to delays in providing relief for those wrongly convicted, while allowing such appeals only in exceptional cases when there are sufficient grounds.