People victimized by traffic accidents submitted a 35,000-signature petition Monday to Justice Minister Daizo Nozawa, calling for investigative reports to be disclosed to their side before any parties are held responsible and charged.
The group alleges that under the current system, probes into traffic accidents tend to center on the statements of one side, including the party responsible for an accident, in times when there are fatalities or victims too injured to give testimony.
It is the first such petition.
The group maintains that this exclusion from the investigative process has led investigators to mishandle cases or level charges without full knowledge of the facts pertaining to accidents involving them or their relatives.
If investigators' reports are promptly disclosed to all parties to an accident, it will make investigations more transparent and pressure investigators to dig deeper into the cause, they said.
The Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that trial-related documents of any kind should not be made public before a trial begins, other than in cases where it serves the public interest.
After submitting the petition to Toshiaki Hiwatari, head of the ministry's Criminal Affairs Bureau, Masahiro Kizawa, the 36-year-old leader of the group, said the current system is unfair in that it can serve the interests of traffic offenders.
Kizawa's brother was hit and severely injured by a drunken driver in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, in October 2001. He is still hospitalized.
The driver, whose father was a well-known figure in the local community and reportedly had influence over police, was not arrested. It took 22 months of vigorous campaigning by the family until the driver was finally indicted, Kizawa said.