Supreme Court Judges Are Reviewed

The national reviw for judges of the Supreme Court will be held on October 27th. It will be voted on the same polling place of general election of the House of Representatives. Six out of fifteen judges will face this referendum. Although there is no judge who was fired by this referendum in the past, the system represents uniqueness of Japan’s judicial system stipulated in the Constitution of Japan.

Article 6 of the Constitution states that the Chief Judge of Supreme Court is appointed by the Emperor as designated by the Cabinet, and other judges of the court are appointed by the Cabinet as Article 79 determines. The appointment of those judges is “reviewed by the people at the first general election of members of the House of Representatives following their appointment,” as Paragraph 2 of Article 79 says.

 

All the six judges subjected to the referendum this month were appointed in 2022 or later, after the last general election of the house in 2021. Three judges have been the judges of lower court before taking seats of the bench of Supreme Court. Another one was a lawyer, and the last one is former diplomat who experienced the Ambassador to Canada and the United Nations. One of those six is female.

 

On the decision of the Supreme Court in July, 2024, which found Eugenic Protection Law had been violating the Constitution, all the six judges except two who was appointed after the decision found the law as unconstitutional. However, Yukihiko Imasaki, one of the six judges who had been the chief judge of Tokyo High Court, opposed the decision of Supreme Court in March, 2024, in which the court found a same sex partner of victim of crime to be in common-law marriage.

 

In a case in which the Supreme Court found documents of former Unification Church, which was to prove its followers’ voluntary will for a large amount of donation, as invalid, former lawyer Mitsuko Miyagawa agreed with the conclusion.

 

Yomiuri Shimbun asked those six judges about the decision on the case of Iwao Hakamada, who was found innocent in a case of murder and robbery with arson. Most of the six judges required the court thorough investigation, sincere reflection, further study on precedents of retrial, or principle of consideration of interest for defendant in a questionable case. But former chief judge of Osaka High Court, Akira Ojima, argued that the courts have been making effort for good decision.

 

The voting on qualification of those six judges will be made marking “X” above the name of judges on the ballot, whom the voter thinks as unqualifying. If a judge receives a lot of denials, exceeding the number of blank votes meaning approval, the judge will be fired. However, no judge has been dismissed from the position by the referendum, because most voters are more interested in general election of the House of Representatives than the review of Supreme Court Judge. It is necessary for the government or news media to provide the votes with further information of the judges on the ballot.

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