Professor Stacey Steele of the University of Melbourne has recently reviewed Dimitri Vanoverbeke's book on Juries in the Japanese Legal System: The Continuing Struggle for Citizen Participation and Democracy.
Here is an excerpt of the review.
Vanoverbeke has produced an extraordinarily detailed historical and socio-legal account of the introduction and use of criminal jury trials in Japan in his Juries in the Japanese legal system. The book is a welcome addition to Routledge’s excellent ‘Law in Asia’ series.
Japan’s introduction of a new lay judge (saiban’in) system is one of the most compelling law reform narratives in 21st century Japanese legal studies. It has moved criminal law and judicial policy to centre stage in Japan, at least for the moment. Japan’s law reform effort is also reflected in debates in other Asian jurisdictions about lay participation in criminal justice. South Korea’s first trial involving lay judges under its new system occurred in 2008 (Kim, 2015). It should therefore not be surprising, that the Japanese reforms have generated extensive media and academic commentary since the legislation was passed in 2004.2 and the first case heard in 2009.3
In the first half of 2015 alone, there have been at least three books in English relating to the subject, including Vanoverbeke’s, and numerous journal articles, including two of my own (Steele, 2015a; Steele, 2015b). Wolff, Nottage and Anderson’s (2015) edited collection includes key chapters dealing with the new lay judge system, as well as other topics involving citizen participation. Wilson, Fukurai and Maruta’s (2015) multiple-author monograph has broad coverage, including arguments for further citizen participation in civil trials in Japan. Vanoverbeke’s work, however, stands out as a sole-authored, book-length analysis dedicated to Japan’s historical experiments with criminal jury trials. It also covers what he describes as the incremental, but inexorable, move towards the establishment of the new saiban’in seido (lay judge system).
To access the entire review go here.
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