Law – Page 8 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

Big changes in Japanese crime reporting, thanks to lay judge system

Japan’s new lay judge system will begin in July. Following the contentious national debate that occurred when people suddenly realized that a decision taken 10 years ago was coming to fruition, people have apparently resigned themselves to the inevitability. The next step has been the process of mental and physical preparation for what lies ahead. Citizens worry over the moral implications of deciding a person’s fate, lawyers and opposition lawmakers jockey for last-minute changes to the details, and the government is busying itself with the ongoing and enormous propaganda effort and the administrative grunt-work of selecting the lay judges and setting up deliberation rooms.

The news media, for its part, has collectively agreed to a rigorous reform of its crime reporting policy, a major change the likes of which have not been seen since the late 1980s, when the media started appending the title “suspect” (容疑者） to accused defendants’ names to emphasize the presumption of innocence.

Cyzo Magazine reports that starting last year, the major news organizations have almost all established new guidelines for crime reporting. While there are slight differences, and it is unclear whether TV news orgs will follow suit, they broadly follow the pattern of the Asahi Shimbun’s new policy:

Clearly state sources of information – Previous practice tended toward lines like “according to the investigation…” which never bothered to cite the actual information source and essentially accepted whatever the police told them as the truth. Out of concern this could bias lay judges, Asahi will now cite specific police department names to make things clearer (the Yomiuri goes further and will note the title of the official at the police department).
Emphasize that the news comes from an official announcement – Rather than saying “The Akasaka Police Department arrested so-and-so” the Asahi will now emphasized that the department announced that it made an arrest.
Note whether the suspect admits to or rejects the charges.
Avoid categorical statments, specifically “[media institution] has learned” (ＸＸＸがわかった) – This is to avoid making it sound like the results of police investigations automatically become the truth.
Include the accused’s side of the story – In addition to police sources, the Asahi and others will endeavor to include the views of the defendant’s lawyers as well.

My first reaction: This is all stuff they should have been doing anyway! But I get the idea that without this impetus, the news organizations have found it impossible to report stories following such standards without risking losing access to the police press clubs. Of course, this story of softball “bad stenography” reporting in exchange for access is pretty much a constant in all areas of corporate journalism in Japan and elsewhere.

However, there is a somewhat unsettling background to these changes. First off, these “self-regulations” did not come about unilaterally of the media’s own volition. Being the first to report on a major arrest is a very easy way to sell papers, and the newspapers and wire services have long used the police beat as a place for young reporters to learn the ropes.

But out of concern for the impartiality of lay judges, the courts are considering UK-style regulations that would restrict reporting certain details of a criminal case, such as the details of police interrogations, until the beginning of court proceedings. The media have revamped their crime reporting policies in the hope of preserving this pillar of their business models. In the absence of constant updates on the progress of interrogations, I wonder how the TV stations and newspaper society sections would fill all the time that would surely open up?

Gay marriage now legal in Japan-to a foreigner, huh?

After a discussion a few weeks ago about the situation of gay politics and life in Japan and Taiwan, there seems to be a very significant update. The Japanese Ministry of Justice has apparently announced that gay marriages will now be recognized as legal in Japan, but only in the rare circumstance that a Japanese national has gotten married to a foreign national of a country which allows gay marriage so two men or women can get married and enjoy each other company and intimacy even using toys like the top rated anal vibrator for this. If such a couple gets married in a foreign jurisdiction which allows gay marriage, that marriage will also be recognized in Japan, but this is apparently NOT an option for a couple consisting of two Japanese nationals. I am slightly baffled at why they would want to go out of their way to create such a special case exemption, which is even more confusing than the rules for recognition of marriage between various US states.

The ministry has so far rejected the issuance of such certificates to Japanese citizens seeking to marry same-sex partners of foreign nationality as such marriages are not approved under domestic law.

For Japanese nationals, whether they are gay or not, to marry foreigners in foreign countries, they must obtain certificates from the ministry by submitting documents including their name, birth data, sex and nationality, and similar information about their marriage partner.

Under the latest decision, the ministry will issue a new type of certificate which will only clarify that the person has reached the legal age for marriage and that he or she is single.

“We were not able to get (the ministry) to forgo the clarification of sexuality. But I want to hail the Justice Ministry’s decision as a step forward (for gays),” said Taiga Ishikawa, who represents gay support group Peer Friends.

Ishikawa said that Japanese gays were not able to get married to a gay foreigner even if their marriage partner’s country approved of same- sex marriage, because the Justice Ministry would not issue the certificate.

“And without marriage they were unable to obtain visas for their partners to live together,” Ishikawa said.

Yes, I suppose it is a major milestone and perhaps a step towards greater legal equality in Japan for all homosexuals, but what really is the point of this new regulation as-is? Who thought it made any kind of logical sense to create a right only for a Japanese to marry a foreigner of the same sex, but not for two Japanese of the same sex to get married? Actually, the last line quoted above gives the answer: by allowing Japanese gays or lesbians to marry their partner, that partner will now qualify for a spouse visa-which in many cases is the difference between allowing a relationship to continue or not. This is of course not an issue for two gay Japanese, who while strangely will now actually have less legal rights and privileges as a couple than one consisted of one Japanese and one foreigner, but at least will not have to worry about being separated due to the vagaries of immigration law.

(Via Andrew Sullivan’s blog)

Philippine Travelogue: Legazpi

March 17, 2009

Despite having our plans of riding the ill-named “Bikol Express” Southrail train from Manila to Legazpi “derailed“, Joosje and I manage to get there by night bus from Manila. We arrive about 9.30AM, exhausted as all hell, catch a tricycle to the Legazpi Tourist Inn (which was the only hotel I have ever been to in the world where they let you stay for two nights and don’ t even ask to see money until you checkout.) It’s raining.

We wander towards the docks, realize you can’t get far down in that direction due to concrete walls and construction barriers, and then instead head into “Victory Village”, which looks from the outside to be a small fish market area on the other side of the concrete wall, through an archway. It turns out to be a 6000 person Barangay (Filipino word for village or neighborhood, which was chosen to replace the Spanish-era word “barrio”). We chat with many people, all very friendly, as we wander through the narrow streets-if you can evven call such narrow pedestrian-only alleys streets, and then a woman tells us we can climb the hill behind the village to get a view of the city and huge volcano (Mt Mayon) beyond. The rain has stopped, and the sun is out. A 12 year old girl, an 18 year old girl, her dog Pipi, and two boys who unusually don’t seem to know any English at all take us slipping and sliding up the hill for an amazing view and after taking it in we slip and slide back down, through what seems to be a mix of mud from the earlier rain and caribou shit, back down to the village. To get onto the path up to the lookout point you have to slip through a barb-wired fence, which is little physical obstical but would probably keep out most un-invited visitors due to appearances.

After we get back down, the woman who had pointed out the way up the hill waves us over to talk. She first introduces herself, Julie T. Bahoy, and then asks if we want to go see the docks and construction site behind the barriers we had balked at earlier. The Barangay runs parallel to the docks area, entirely cut off from it by a tall concrete wall which is prettied up on the dock-facing side but ugly, bare concrete on the village side, aside from the market entrance we had taken, another opening in the middle, and one gate into the construction area and fishing docks. Julie tells us that the construction is for a major tourist destination and resort project known as The Embarcadero. (The project and name both seem inspired by San Francisco’s Embarcadero.) The Embercadero construction has made it more difficult for the villagers to reach their fishing piers, which can only be reached by traversing the construction site itself. Only village residents are supposed to be allowed out to the fishing pier, but Julie says that if anyone asks she will just tell them that she wants to show her friends the fishing boats and not The Embarcadero. In fact, none of the guards or construction workers are very interested, but Julie seems to ejoy the thought of getting away with something.

After looking around the pier area we walk back into the village and have a seat at a small shop run by her mother. She gives us bottles of generic brand cola and some chocolate snack-cake thing and tells us about herself. The fishing village within Legazpi cityis her home town, and she is educated in a nearby college, with a major in business management. After graduation she was unable to actually work in that field, instead getting a clerical job in a law office, which she did for many years before switching to her current job managing a small office in the city. It does not pay particularly well, and she has some side jobs trading various goods, sometimes involving networking with her sister in Manila, particularly apaca fiber products for export. She might be able to find a better job with higher pay, but says that the company she works at would fail without her, and she does not want to be responsible for putting the others out of work. Yet, she also does not demand higher pay. Her father is a retired machinist for the electrical utility, draws a small pension, and continues to do some machining work from a home shop.

Although much of her time is of course occupied by her dayjob, Julie’s real vocation has been her work on the Barangay Council, where she is the youngets of its seven members. She was first elected as the youth representative at the age of 18 and is now nearing the end of her third, and term-limited final, term. She has always ran, and been elected, as an independent and refrained from the bribe and gift exchanges ubiquitous in local Philippine politics, facts that she is very proud of. She even uses her small honorarium as a council member for purchasing things needed by the village, such as lights, instead of keeping it as a payment. Approaching the end of her final term she is wrestling with the decision of whether or not to try and run for council chairperson, as some are urging her to do, but is reluctant to do so out of concern that it may be difficult to do so without engaging in the standard corrupt politicking and that it would occupy even more of the time she needs to make money for her family, a conundrum traditionally solved by engaging in the corruption which she so abhors.

Still, she is considering giving it a shot so that she can work for the barangay. And the barangay needs help, fenced in and under threat due to the Embarcadero project. 95% of the village population survives in one way or another from the fising trade, with only about 1 in 20 engaged in external occupations in the city. Naturally, anything that obstructs their access to the sea is a serious threat. While some villagers have temporary work during the construction phase, few of them have enough education to apply for the permanent jobs that will be created upon its completion. There is a free public elementary school inside the village, and like all of the schools I have seen in The Philippines so far it is pleasant and well maintained (the newspapers reported this past week that the Department of Education was rated least corrupt governmeent department in a public opinion survey) but higher education requires travel outside into the city, which few of the fishing families have the hard currency for.

There are rumors that the project is partially owned by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (always referred to as GMA here), widely considered to be corrupt (one recent survey pegged her as even more corrupt than the late Ferdinand Marcos, which while highly unlikely at least gives a sense of the level of discontent) or at least one of her friends. The wall was constructed without permission of or consultation with the barangay or any of its residents, and unsurprisingly cut across some private land. According to Julie, the Bahoy family house’s lot extends a full 25 meters past the wall, and they have a lawsuit pending over the theft of their land. She says that the developers have offfered to settle for the fairly hefty sum of 20 million pesos (around USD $500,000), but they have documents showing clear title to the land and are not interested in settling. Such a settlement offer implies that they have a strong case, and she even hopes to have the wall itself removed. Unfortunately, many of the other residents lack proper documentation and are even legally considered to be squatting in their own homes, and have no hope of filing a similar lawsuit. Such carelessness in basic legal matters is an obvious result of under-education, but fishing has not historically been an occupation with a great need for men of letters. And with the fishing at risk, they have little or nothing to fall back on. More of the children stay in school than their elders, but probably still not enough. In the face of this situation, I expect that Julie will find herself unable to not run for barangay council president, and will sleep even less.

(As will all entries in this series, this will be reposted with photos added some time after my return to Japan.)

警察庁 v.s. 警視庁 — Distinguishing the National Police Agency from the Tokyo Metropolitan Department

Readers living or traveling in Japan’s capital may note that Tokyo police officers and patrol cars bear the characters 警視庁, or keishichou. At first glance it appears to be the characters for the National Police Agency (NPA), except the middle of the three characters is different — the NPA is 警察庁, or keisatsuchou. Keishichou is the unique name attributed to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. For a Japanese speaker even mildly familiar with the structure of government in Japan, this looks peculiar — why is a prefectural police department named in such a way that it appears to be a national agency?

keishichou1

The history begins with the Meiji Restoration, when the keishichou was established in 1874 to protect and police the seat of government. As a police department, it had a unique role from the time of its establishment — some of its officers were organized into a division that fought for the Imperial government in the Satsuma Rebellion. The keishichou at this time served as a prefectural police department, but it was an agency of the government, subordinate to the cabinet, and Tokyo prefecture only had the authority to decide its budget. Later, the department also housed the Tokko special police force, the civilian counterpart to the military’s Kempeitai, taking part in both criminal investigation and counter-espionage functions.

The headquarters of the keishichou was situated just outside Sakuradamon, the southern gate of Edo Castle/Imperial Palace, possibly due to its importance in guarding the emperor, but also because that site was the location of an infamous assassination a decade earlier, and the location of the agency may have been a show of authority. The jolly Victorian structure was unfortunately destroyed in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, as witnessed below. (Today, the Keishichou is right next to Sakuradamon gate, and the NPA is in the building next to it.)

keishichou3

During the Occupation, the Keishichou was reformulated under the old police law, and added the imperial police under its jurisdiction, which had previously been a wholly independent branch of authority. During the same time, GHQ set up a similar keishichou in Osaka, which only lasted for the years of the Occupation.

After the Occupation, Tokyo’s Keishichou became an ordinary prefectural police department, but kept its name and retained some of its unique functions. From a jurisdictional standpoint, most prefectures are divided into wards with different departments of the prefectural police having jurisdiction over certain regions of each prefecture. Only Tokyo and Hokkaido have police departments where one department and all of its officers have responsibility for the entire prefecture, without divisions into areas. Also, the keishichou maintains some additional responsiblities, being responsible also for policing the Imperial Family, the Diet, the administrative agencies, the cabinet, the embassies of foreign nations in Japan, and other important people (officers of the keishichou were dispatched to Hokkaido for the G8 summit). The Keishichou is also the only prefectural police department that handles any fire truck activities (typically a separate task handled by the shoubouchou, or Fire Prevention Agency) because the imperial police force have this task especially assigned to them as part of their duties.

Interestingly enough, metropolitan police departments that provide similar functions in other countries, such as Scotland Yard in London and the Paris Prefecture Police are often translated as keishichou as well.

The pen or the chop?

Like other East Asian countries, Japan is a heavy user of seals (hanko) as a means of authenticating documents. So is it better to use a seal or a signature?

Japanese civil procedure doesn’t particularly care. If you ever end up in a Japanese courtroom, a signature is just as admissible as a seal impression for proving that someone approved a document. Some lawyers recommend signing and sealing to have twice the protection. If you’re really paranoid, the best way to avoid doubt is to sign or seal your document before a notary public. There are Japanese notaries in every city, and most embassies and consulates offer notarial services to citizens and related parties (often for much less than the Japanese notaries charge).

Although you can get away with a signature for most private matters, seals are required under Japanese law when registering certain things with the government: companies, real estate, cars, childbirths and the like. But foreigners get some special consideration thanks to the Act Regarding the Signatures, Seals and Indigent Certification of Aliens, which was passed by the Diet in 1900. An imperial order in 1926 struck out the second half of the statute (I believe it had to do with getting court fees waived, which is the contemporary use of the Japanese term), so its effective portion is now just two lines:

Article 1. Where a signature and seal are to be used pursuant to a law or ordinance, it shall be adequate for an alien to use a signature.
2. Where only a seal is to be used, an alien shall be deemed to have given a seal by virtue of their signature.

Japanese nationals resident outside Japan can also use signatures for such transactions, mainly out of necessity: since they are not registered residents of a Japanese city, they cannot have the registered seal which is normally needed to record legal title to things. The usual alternative, for both foreigners and non-resident Japanese, is to get a signature certificate from a consulate or local authority, which shows the person’s signature and has an official attestation to the effect that “this is the verified signature of so-and-so.”

This doesn’t stop seals from being necessary in some private transactions, such as banking, where a private counterparty simply demands that a seal be used. In that case, you have no choice other than to complain. But institutions are starting to be more flexible with seals and signatures, so it’s becoming increasingly rare to need a seal for private transactions.

Brazilian community in the Homi Danchi, Toyota City

The Homi public housing development (“Danchi” in Japanese) in the Homigaoka area of Toyota City, in Aichi Prefecture, is now home to a large population of Brazilian immigrants. They mainly came to the area to work at Toyota and related manufacturing jobs, but are now often the first to lose those jobs due to the worsening recession. The Homi Danchi (population over 11,000) is decades old and was originally inhabited entirely (or almost entirely) by Japanese, but due to its affordable prices and location now has a majority of Brazilians, and the stores in the area reflect that ethnic shift.

Tensions between the Japanese and Brazilian residents of the Danchi over such issues as garbage disposal and communication difficulties have existed as long as Brazilians have been moving into the city residential complex, but have worsened as the Brazilians have become the majority. Japanese residents, who are now largely elderly and single residents or single-mother families, often complain that the non-Japanese speaking Brazilian newcomers have not assimilated as well as they had hoped, and do not follow the rules that had been set by the “Community Board” (自治会) long before their arrival. Although there are around 400 vacancies in the Homi Danchi, the Japanese Community Board and the city have an agreement to only allow 40 units to be newly rented out each year so that new residents have time to acclimate, but the Brazilians claim that this quote is a form of ethnic discrimination. This has become particularly contentious as newly out of work Brazilians in the area are in need of cheaper housing. On top of this, Brazilians who can no longer even afford the low rent of the Danchi are moving out and leaving behind huge amounts of trash, particularly bulk trash which clutters the hallways and public areas. To attempt to resolve these issues, and to negotiate with the Danchi Community Board and the Toyota City government, the Brazilians organized their own Japan-style Community Association （保見ヶ丘ブラジル人協会）　in January of this year.

Some more information, in Japanese and slightly out of date, can be found at this web site.

I was taken to visit the Homi Danchi by a friend who had an appointment there on March 1 during my first visit to the Nagoya region. We stayed for a few hours, and the introduction above is based on what my friend, those present at the Brazilian Community Association meeting, and other residents told me.

Photos can be viewed in either this Flash slideshow, or in flat HTML/JPEG below. All photos were taken with Canon 50D camera using 17-85 EF-S IS lens.

Continue reading Brazilian community in the Homi Danchi, Toyota City

Double passports?

Apparently Taiwan has a peculiar new proposal, the likes of which I have never heard before-to allow second passports. Upon seeing the headline, I assumed at first that this was about some change to the laws on multiple citizenship (which have been hugely controversial in Taiwan recently, at least regarding politicians such as Diane Lee) but it is actually something completely different.

He said many businesspeople had been lobbying for a second passport as their travel documents were sometimes held up at travel agencies or embassies during the visa application process, which prevents them from traveling abroad during the waiting period.

I can certainly understand how this might be useful, as I had to be without my passport for well over a week when getting a tourist visa to enter Kazakhstan, and could have serious problems if, for example, I had to rush home to the US for a family emergency.I have simply never heard of such a thing before. Would this system be entirely unique, should Taiwan implement it?

Gay politics in Taiwan vs. Japan

I had been vaguely aware that gays are more open in Taiwan than in Japan (more active gay pride festival, spotting a very cleary labeled gay bookstore near Taiwan University), but hadn’t consciously realized quite how different things are before reading this article from yesterday’s Taipei Times.

Gay rights activists yesterday announced that they would form a voting bloc to support gay-friendly candidates in the upcoming legislative by-election in Taipei City’s Da-an District (大安).

“We’ve had six gay pride parades in Taipei in the past six years and more than 18,000 people took part in last year’s event — that’s where the voters are,” chief coordinator of last year’s gay pride parade, Lee Ming-chao (李明照), told a news conference.

“In the process of mobilizing the gay and lesbian community in Taipei, we estimated that around 10 percent of voters in Da-an District are gay — including myself. We can surely become a deciding minority if we stand together.”

He predicted that the turnout for the by-election would be lower than the 60.47 percent for last year’s legislative election.

This whole concept seems to me utterly inconceivable in Japan. While there is not much in the way of active discrimination against gays in Japan (like there is in most Muslim countries and some Christian ones, even including much of the US until recently) I get the impression that homosexuality and related issues are still generally more taboo here than anywhere else in all of East and Southeast Asia. Yes, there is a transgender politician in Tokyo, but Kamikawa Aya is said to be the only openly LGBT politician in the entire country of over 120 million people. Compared with Taipei’s apparently increasingly popular gay pride parade, Tokyo’s has been cancelled for this year due to lack of interest/resources.

Foreigners to finally be booked in the same registration system as Japanese people

Per a Kyodo wire report in Japanese, the new “zairyu card” proposal (detailed here and here) coincides with an MLIT proposal for an updated resident registration (juminhyo) system, which will include foreigners for the first time.

This is perhaps the best part of the entire change. For years now, foreigners have been booked in a separate alien registration system, which creates all sorts of hassles: their Japanese spouses officially appear to be single, and the foreigner can’t verify their identity using the same means as locals (which confuses inexperienced clerks all the time). Visitors in Portugal who plan to stay in the country longer, or even permanently, may consider applying for a portugal golden visa.

So now the picture is a bit clearer. When a foreigner moves, they will update their juminhyo at city hall just like a Japanese person would, and this update will be forwarded to Immigration for recording in the zairyu card system. It still isn’t clear how extensions and changes in immigration status will work (the same in reverse?), but this seems like a promising line of developments so far.

More details on the new “zairyu cards”

Debito has gotten hold of the actual proposal to overhaul Japan’s alien registration system (as blogged in this space last week). If you read Japanese, go straight to his post and read the primary sources.

Some of the details which are now clear:

Initial registration will still be done at city hall — “to the Minister of Justice by way of the mayor.” Address changes will also be made to the local government where the holder resides, but other updates will go directly to Immigration (or to whichever Justice Ministry office is designated for that purpose).
Separate re-entry permits will no longer be required for short trips out of Japan, so long as the foreigner has their zairyu card when they return. (Re-entry permits may stick around for use on longer trips out of Japan.)
Eligibility to work will now clearly show up on the face of the card as either “free to work,” “restricted to activities within status of residence” or “may not work without separate permit.”
My card will no longer say “attorney.” Dammit.