Justice Minister Keiko Chiba said Friday she will ask the ministry's Legislative Council next week to consider flexibility in its position on the statute of limitations for serious crimes.
A Justice Ministry study group in July, before Democratic Party of Japan member Chiba and the DPJ swept to power in the August Lower House election and ousted the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, proposed that the statute of limitations on serious crimes such as murder be abolished in line with what it calls current public opinion that perpetrators not be allowed to evade punishment.
But Chiba wants the council to rethink the statute debate from scratch because the DPJ's view differs from that of the LDP-instigated study group.
On serious crimes, the DPJ has indicated it wants courts to be able to withhold the statute at the request of prosecutors, for example if an as-yet unidentified perpetrator's DNA has been recovered.
The panel will set up a subcommittee to start discussions by year's end, according to ministry sources.
Under the current system, the statute of limitation for crimes subject to the death penalty is 25 years, while those subject to life imprisonment with parole is set at 15 years.
The study group initially presented four options that might be considered in reviewing the statutes of limitations — abolishment, extension, introduction of a system to enable prosecutors to bring charges based on DNA evidence even if a perpetrator has gone undetected, and another system to enable prosecutors to ask courts to suspend the statute when "certain solid evidence" exists.
Eventually, it rejected the third and fourth options as "inappropriate," saying they cannot "fully respond" to current public opinion favoring pursuing serious offenders.
The Legislative Council subcommittee will focus again on the four options.