Amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law and the law on wiretapping, both enacted in 2016, were fully implemented at the beginning of this month, turning a new page in the reform of the criminal justice system that was triggered by a major scandal in 2010 involving prosecutors tampering with evidence in a criminal case and then trying to cover it up. Video recordings of the interrogation process of suspects — intended to ensure transparency and prevent false confessions — have become mandatory in cases subject to lay judge trials and those independently probed by prosecutors. Meanwhile, requirements on wiretapping in criminal probe have been eased as part of the steps to provide police and prosecutors with more investigation tools, such as the introduction of plea bargaining last year, in exchange for the tighter rules on interrogations.
Mandating the video-recordings of interrogations was a key reform intended to prevent false charges and convictions in the nation's criminal justice system. Ahead of the mandating of such recording under the law, both the police and prosecutors have already begun video-recording their interrogation of suspects in 80 to 90 percent of the cases covered by the amendment — although they still account for a small portion of all the criminal cases they handle. On the other hand, the move by prosecutors to actively use recordings of interrogations as evidence in court has raised controversy.
Initially the prosecutors opposed the mandatory video-recording — designed to show whether suspects voluntarily gave statements in interrogations behind closed doors as opposed to being coerced or led by investigators to confess — on the grounds that investigators would find it harder to obtain statements. But in 2015, the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office ordered prosecutors nationwide to consider using such recordings as evidence against the accused in court. What stirred up the controversy was a trial involving the murder of a girl in Tochigi Prefecture in which more than seven hours of the recorded interrogation of the accused was shown in court. In 2016, the Utsunomiya District Court sentenced the accused to life in prison. While the accused said he had been led by prosecutors to falsely confess to killing the victim, the judges determined that the video of his interrogation supported the credibility of his confession.