Waseda University Institute of Comparative Law

     Public prosecutors are given important authority in criminal cases under the Public Prosecutor’s Office Act to investigate criminal offenses, institute and pursue prosecution, supervise the execution of judgment, etc., as representatives of public interests.
     Public prosecutors, however, came under criticism that they had failed, due to their shortage in number, to appropriately handle the cases that had been sent from the police and other primary investigative bodies, complaints or accusations that had been filed directly with the Public Prosecutors Office, and other large-scale economic crime cases.
     Further, some observed that prosecutorial authorities were sometimes “assumed” by lower rank prosecutors or officers, and that many of the cases, albeit mostly minor ones, that were prescribed to be handled by public prosecutors assigned to the District Public Prosecutors Offices were entrusted to assistant prosecutors, while many of the cases of local public prosecutors offices prescribed to be handled by assistant prosecutors were entrusted to public prosecutors’ assistant officers.

     In response to the above criticisms and observations, and based on the recommendations of the Justice System Reform Council, a plan was formulated in an effort to further improve the qualities and abilities required of public prosecutors as lawyers by: (i) Drastically reviewing the personnel and educational and training system of public prosecutors, and enabling them to work as non-prosecutors for a certain period in places where they can gain insight into the thinking and sense of the general public (such as in law firms); (ii) taking specific measures to enable public prosecutors––including senior prosecutors––to deepen their understanding of the minds of crime victims and the activities of the police and other primary investigative bodies; and by (iii) improving and enhancing internal training programs to prevent public prosecutors from becoming dogmatic and to enable them to fully perform their duties, introducing an appropriate training system to enable public prosecutors to acquire and improve professional expertise, and improving their courtroom skills in light of the commencement of the new system in May of 2009, whereby citizen judges (saiban-in) will participate in criminal trials. Accordingly, certain legislation and measures have been implemented in line with the objectives of the reform plan.
      In particular, vigorous training programs have been conducted to improve prosecutors’ courtroom skills in light of the upcoming introduction of criminal trials utilizing citizen judges, such as the repeated practice of “citizen judge mock trials” using teaching materials based on actual difficult cases.
     At present, the Japanese public prosecutor system is steadily taking these new steps to attain the objectives of the reform.