Setsuko Kamiya is a staff writer and editor covering local news, including
legal issues, and has been following the ongoing judicial reform. A 2005
Fulbright journalist grantee, she studied the American jury system in
California.
For Setsuko Kamiya's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
In the same courtroom where many of his fellow Aum Shinrikyo cult members were tried years before, Makoto Hirata was convicted and sentenced earlier this month. Location aside, the legal process has moved on in the intervening years, from the makeup of the bench to ...
When lay judges hand down a prison term, many focus on the merits of the case itself and not about the life behind bars that awaits the guilty. One group of citizens who served as lay judges in criminal trials, however, took a tour of ...
Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, regional governments have been reviewing their disaster plans and enhancing preparations, from boosting buildings' quake resistance to increasing their stockpiles of emergency food and blankets for immediate use. While taking such measures is undoubtedly crucial, Toshitaka Katada, a civil ...
The lay judges who sentenced two Somali pirates to 10 years in prison Friday said that while they had initial qualms about a case they considered foreign, they came to believe it was their duty as part of the international community to try the ...
The Tokyo District Court jails two Somali pirates for 10 years for trying to hijack an oil tanker operated by a Japanese company in the Indian Ocean in 2011.
Music has played an important role in easing the pain of many people in the Tohoku region whose lives were affected by the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. But for Sendai-based violinist Satoko Sato and pianist Mitsuhiro Sakakibara, performing for the survivors is ...
In the first case prosecuted under Japan's 2009 antipiracy law, two Somali men pleaded guilty Tuesday in Tokyo District Court to charges of boarding and attempting to hijack a Bahamas-registered tanker operated by a Japanese shipping company. The ship, sailing in the Indian Ocean off ...
A mere 15 minutes before Azuma Konno, a Democratic Party of Japan candidate running in Sunday's Lower House election, was set to make a stump speech in front of JR Sendai Station last Friday evening, a 7.4-magnitude quake struck deep off Miyagi's shore, flooding ...
From Hokkaido to Okinawa Prefecture, 1,504 candidates are campaigning for the 480 seats up for grabs in Sunday's Lower House election. During the 12-day campaigning period, which officially began last Tuesday, the candidates must strictly follow the rules stipulated by the Public Offices Election Law. The ...
Terue Ishimura has yet to decide which party she will vote for in the Dec. 16 general election. But one thing is clear — she won't be supporting the ruling Democratic Party of Japan again. Ishimura, a Saitama Prefecture resident in her 60s, voted for ...
