Another ingredient has been added to the ongoing debate over revising the Juvenile Law, with crime victims' families clamoring for their right to information and for an end to unfair investigations.

In a Monday gathering at the office complex of Upper House members, Kimio Okazaki, whose 14-year-old son was killed in an assault by his schoolmate in 1998, criticized investigative authorities for neglecting to hear the family's opinions during the course of the investigation.

Based on police investigations, the family court concluded last August that Satoshi Okazaki died in October 1998 after being hit by another boy of the same age in a one-on-one fight that the victim provoked.

However, the parents and their lawyers have claimed that the authorities favored the other boy, whose father and brother were policemen at the time.

The parents are expected to file a damages suit as early as Wednesday against authorities for what they claim were illegal investigations.

Lawyers of the parents said the current judicial system for dealing with juvenile crimes is not subject to scrutiny, which would deter unfair investigations.

Masato Tosaka, one of Okazaki's lawyers, said investigative authorities in Okazaki's case took advantage of the juvenile inquiry system, which largely depends on police discretion.

Nobuto Hosaka of the Democratic Party of Japan, who is also a member of the Lower House's Legal Affairs Committee, said he plans to have the committee thoroughly review Okazaki's case.

The Liberal Party's Nobuaki Futami also criticized investigations by Ibaraki Prefectural Police.

"By seeking the truth of Okazaki's case, we would like to change the structural problems in the current police system," he said.

An Okinawa man whose high school boy was killed by minors said the Diet should consider a law that would allow disclosure of investigative information and juvenile inquiry records to victims.

He also urged a system to further involve people victimized by crimes and their families in the investigation process as well as in juvenile inquiries.