"Justice of the hostages": how Japan gets its confessions and convictions | New

Tokyo, Japan – It is a bare and unheated room whose minimal interior details are limited to a bed, a toilet, a window with iron bars and a door without handle.

The place that Carlos Ghosn now calls home is a long way from the luxury residences and five-star hotels he was used to as chairman of Nissan's board of directors and one of the most powerful auto rulers. in the world.

Instead, the world of Ghosn is limited – for an indefinite future – to a single cell in the Tokyo Detention House, a 12-story white complex located in a northern suburb of Japan's vast megalopolis.

It is here that Nissan's fallen chief has been detained for more than two months after officers boarded his jet plane dramatically to stop him after the plane landed at Haneda airport. in Tokyo on November 19th.

And it is from his solitary cell that the former titan of the automotive industry has also resigned as CEO and President of Renault, paving the way for his successors, Jean-Dominique Senard and Thierry Bollore, to take bar.

Confess on bail

But it is not only the unexpected fall of Ghosn or the accusations of financial misconduct that have attracted the attention of the international community since his arrest – his continued detention indefinitely perpetuating, the case has also cast a critical light on the Japanese judicial system.

Last week, Ghosn's second bail application was denied by the Tokyo District Court, despite his promise not to flee the country, to hand over his three pbadports and to wear an electronic tag on his ankle.

The reason for the refusal was not provided by a court, but the results were not surprising to experts in the Japanese legal system, where bail is rarely granted to defendants without confession.

Ghosn declared his innocence vehemently against formal charges of under-reporting his salary for eight years until March 2018 and the temporary transfer of personal financial losses in Nissan's books.

The result? In the absence of confession, Ghosn – who has already lost seven pounds because of his new prison diet of rice and barley, according to his wife – is expected to remain in detention until the close of his trial.

His detention placed the Japanese criminal justice system under international supervision, particularly the practice of detaining suspects without charge until 23 days before arresting them again on the basis of separate allegations. Many remain in detention until they confess or have their case judged.

A court sketch shows Ghosn at a court hearing earlier this month. It was his first public appearance since November. [Kyodo via Reuters]

& # 39; Justice of hostages & # 39;

It is this apparent peculiarity of the Japanese judicial system – dubbed "hostage justice" – that some critics have directly linked to the nation's often quoted statistic that more than 99% of the cases adjudicated give rise to a conviction.

"It's about creating an environment that facilitates confessions," said Colin Jones, a law professor at Kyoto's Doshisha University. "Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, pre-trial detention is an investigative tool.

"Thus, at an early stage, the detention is intended to facilitate the interrogation of the investigating authorities who presumed that someone was guilty.

"Japanese prosecutors rely heavily on confessions to secure their convictions – and to have one in most cases is how they keep their conviction rate very high."

Jones expects Ghosn to be held in custody.

Calls for changes

It is clear that Ghosn's long detention is far from an isolated case – even if it is one of the most prominent international media in recent years.

Prosecutors' official requests for permission to detain arrested suspects have increased in recent years, from 72,597 in 1990 to 105,669 in 2016, according to a white paper on lawyers published in 2017 by the Japan Bar Federation (JFBA). ).

While detention clearance rates declined slightly from 99.8% to 96.6% over the same period, the figures show that the result remains generally favorable to detention.

"The detention rate is slowly decreasing but remains very high," said Yuichi Kaido, chairman of the JFBA Criminal Detention Committee.

"In 2017, 62% of bail applications were also allowed.This also seems high, even maybe 10 or 20 years ago, it was less than half," he added.

Kaido said the JFBA has been campaigning for changes to the Japanese criminal detention system for 40 years – but the changes have been slow and ineffective.

"Many lawyers do not support the system but do not oppose it either – the voice of the opposition is therefore very weak," he said. "The most important aspect is that in Japan, the period during which prosecutors may detain suspects is too long – 23 days versus 24 hours or 48 hours in many other countries."

Among many examples include the case of Yasunori Kagoike, the former president of a private school company, who was arrested in 2017 alongside his wife for 10 months, suspected of fraud in part of a land sale as part of a major scandal related to the Prime Minister's wife. .

Sun-Dye, a musician based in Japan, was detained for 10 months without bail, after being arrested for stealing 10,000 yen ($ 91.41) from a shop before being acquitted by trial.

Mark Karpeles, of Mount Gox, bows to a press conference after a misappropriation case held in Tokyo in July 2017. A court should return its verdict in March [Toru Hanai/Reuters]

As the situation of Ghosn – born in Brazil of Lebanese parents, and also of French nationality – shows, it is not only Japanese nationals who are at risk of long detention.

Mark Karpeles, a French citizen based in Japan and managing director of Mt.Gox, the failing stock exchange of bankrupt bitcoin, spent nearly a year in detention after his arrest in 2015, before being charged with hijacking 340 million yen ($ 3.1 million). , an accusation punishable by 10 years.

His trial ended in December, the verdict being expected for March. Karpeles denies having committed a wrongdoing.

"Shame not pride"

"Prolonged pre-trial detention allows prosecutors to isolate detainees and incite them to sign confessions," said Professor Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo. "Inmates claiming innocence are subject to prolonged detention until they are involved, and bail is extremely rare for anyone who does not confess."

Although slow, the opposition to the system seems to be intensifying – not only internationally, thanks to business like Ghosn – but also in Japan.

"This practice is not widely acceptable," said Kingston. "Local media, civil society and lawyers have drawn attention to many abuses by prosecutors and forced confessions resulting in wrongful convictions." From this point of view, conviction rate above 99 % is shame and not pride ".

The center where Ghosn is held. In Japan, suspects often spend months in pre-trial detention. [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]

In parallel with its call for widespread reform – especially for the abolition of lengthy pretrial detention, as in the case of Ghosn – the JFBA also urged that interrogations be recorded.

"The current Japanese criminal justice system poses various problems in light of the constitution and international human rights law," said the organization in an online statement.

"The JFBA has called for the eradication of" hostage justice "and the reform of this system of pre-trial detention …, the introduction of the bail system and the establishment of measures to ensure the appearance of a suspect, as well as other activities "he added.

For Ghosn, who is likely to turn 65 in his Tokyo cell in March, with many more months of incarceration to follow, such reforms clearly could not happen quickly enough.