Reform of Retrial System: Diet Must Thoroughly Discuss Remedies for Wrongful Convictions

Editorial

17:03 JST, February 15, 2026

The government has compiled a set of proposals for reforming the nation’s retrial system, which is intended to aid victims of false convictions by retrying their cases. However, criticism persists that the proposals are substantially insufficient.

What kind of a system should be established to swiftly rectify wrongful convictions, which are serious human rights violations committed by the state? Discussions on this issue will now move to the Diet.

The Legislative Council, which examined reforms of the retrial system for retrying cases in which guilty verdicts have been finalized, has adopted an outline of proposed revisions and submitted it to the justice minister. 

Under the current system, there are almost no rules specifying how retrials should proceed. Prosecutors have often resisted lawyers’ requests for the disclosure of evidence, and their arguments with defense counsel were a factor in prolonging retrial proceedings.

Given the situation, the outline includes a proposal to stipulate in the Criminal Procedure Code that courts are obliged to order prosecutors, who hold evidence, to submit it.

In the 1966 murder of a family in Shizuoka Prefecture, color photographs of clothing with bloodstains led to the acquittal of Iwao Hakamata, who had been on death row, in his retrial. It took about 30 years from seeking a retrial to the disclosure of this evidence. This situation is utterly unreasonable.

Mandating the disclosure of evidence is likely to be a first step toward preventing such situations. This revision could reduce conflicts between prosecutors and defense counsel and make it easier for the defense to prove wrongful convictions using the disclosed evidence.

However, discussions at the council became heated over how to define the scope of evidence subject to disclosure. Legal scholars outside of the council have also repeatedly voiced concern that if the scope of disclosure is insufficient, efforts to redress victims of wrongful convictions would instead regress.

In the proposed reform, a decision on the types of evidence to order the prosecution to submit would be left to the judge. Judges should strive to appropriately manage litigation to ensure the revised scope of evidence disclosure does not become narrower than the current one.

The outline also proposes adding a provision for penalties in case former defendants or defense counsel provide copies of disclosed evidence to third parties. In Hakamata’s case, copies of the disclosed color photographs of clothing were shared with his supporters and others, and media outlets reported about them. This ultimately led to his acquittal in the retrial.

Retrial procedures are closed to the public. If penalties are established even for the provision of disclosed evidence to third parties, retrial proceedings would become even more closed-door affairs. Regulations that infringe upon the people’s right to know cannot be overlooked.

Based on the council’s report outlining the proposals, the Justice Ministry plans to submit to the Diet a bill to revise the Criminal Procedure Code. Separately, a bipartisan league of Diet members is drafting its own amendment proposals that would call for a broader scope of evidence disclosure than that in the government’s plans and seek to stipulate a ban on prosecutors from appealing decisions to initiate retrials.

Lawmakers should explore the ideal form of a retrial system by examining these two sets of proposals in the Diet.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Feb. 15, 2026)