The Kobe District Court on Feb. 20 dismissed a case against a former senior police officer indicted on a charge of professional negligence resulting in deaths and injuries in connection with a 2001 fatal mass crush of people who came out to see a fireworks display in Akashi, Hyogo Prefecture.

Mr. Kazuaki Sakaki, then deputy head of the Akashi Police Station, had been indicted under the revised prosecution inquest system introduced in May 2009. He faced "mandatory indictment" in April 2010 after a prosecution inquest committee, an 11-member citizens' judicial panel, voted in favor of indictment for a second time, overturning the prosecution's earlier decision not to indict.

The prosecution inquest system is meaningful in that it allows citizens to have a say on decisions made by the prosecution. In the Akashi case, the then deputy head of the police station had to appear in a trial and the trial helped to shed light on the way the police worked out a plan to control the crowd.