One in three citizen judges recently surveyed by Kyodo News said passing judgment on their fellow peers in court was stressful, but a large majority still reflected on their experience as being positive.

Of the 342 respondents in the survey conducted ahead of the lay judge system's 10-year anniversary on Tuesday, 31 percent said they were "stressed to some extent," and 3 percent felt a "high degree of stress" from the experience.

The lay judge system was introduced on May 21, 2009, in order to reflect the opinions of ordinary people.