Hangover of Japan’s secret executions

Japan has a death penalty problem that is not going to change in the near future. Since the law favors strict enforcement at the expense of suspects’ rights, the Japanese system has been continuously discharging miscarriages of justice.

Once on death row in Japan, the prisoner’s life is confined to the four walls of the solitary confinement cell, ties with the outside is heavily curbed and he/she is only informed about the date of execution a couple of hours before being taken to the gallows (in Japan’s case by hanging); and therefore must eat every meal not knowing it will be the last.

A black hood is placed over inmates’ heads and they are blindfolded before prison staffers simultaneously press buttons, releasing the trap door and everything of the humiliating method of execution is over, lasting a few seconds.

The Japanese government has been sticking to the argument that isolation is needed for death row prisoners to “ensure their emotional stability.” 

But the claim turns ludicrous given the fact that even mentally incompetent persons have been executed in Japan, a member of the advanced G7 group of nations.

Postwar Japan has seen at least four cases where death -row inmates were executed on wrong verdicts who were found not guilty in retrials.

Death row prisoners are barred from seeing their own medical records and independent specialists are denied access to them due to the high level of secrecy maintained by the government. 

Family members of prisoners come to know about the tragic end of their beloved ones only after they have breathed their last.

The secrecy ensures that there is no public debate about the death penalty and how the law is applied.

In 1979, Japan became a party to the global Covenant on Civil Liberties, which prohibits “painful and humiliating” methods of execution. The Committee on Civil Liberties, which is tasked with implementation of the covenant, has expressed concern over executing suspects without prior notice, but Japan is not bothered.

Japan’s Justice Ministry has never divulged why and when it resorted to immediate executions. Human rights activists said it might have started in 1975 when one death-row inmate killed himself.

Armed with overwhelming public support as a justification, in December 2021 current Prime Minister Kishida Fumio approved the hanging of three death-row inmates.  More than 80 percent of Japanese are in favor of the death penalty, according to government polls.

Last July, the Japanese Catholic bishops’ Justice and Peace Commission called the death penalty an "attack on the inviolability and dignity of personality."

The prelates’ plea came after Tomohiro Kato, 39, was hanged, who was convicted of killing seven people in a stabbing rampage in Tokyo’s popular Akihabara district in 2008.

In an open letter, the bishops' said, “The violence of the death penalty can never build a peaceful society. Rather, the barbarism that goes against the times creates new violence.”

A group of lawyers representing three death row inmates criticized the secrecy shrouding the executions on Jan. 27 at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.

The lawyers, who have filed a case in the Osaka District Court to abolish hangings as Japan's execution method, called for more debate and more information to be made public on secret executions.

Kyoji Mizutani, one of the lawyers, said, “The Japanese government has been keeping the facts about executions hidden from public view and avoiding debate on the matter."

Though capital punishment has become out of style with more than 70 percent of nations who have banned it in law or in practice. Among the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a club of rich countries, the US and Japan are the only nations that continue to execute criminals. 

Though most executions in the US are carried out by states, President Joe Biden hinted at ending capital punishment at the federal-level in June last year. But Japan, the fourth largest economy in the world, prefers to stick to its guns when it comes to its infamous secret executions.