Nagoya, Fukuoka courts agree December Lower House election was unconstitutional
Right after the lower house elections last December, two separate teams of lawyers filed 14 different lawsuits in eight high courts and six branches all over Japan. They prayed for the nullification of...
View ArticleJapanese mother given 30 years in prison for staving 2 kids to death
A 25 year old single mother was sentenced to 30 years in prison in Osaka this week for killing her two young children by starving them to death. Sanae Nakamura was found guilty of locking her 3 year...
View ArticleSupreme Court fines woman after denying ex-husband access to child
The Japanese Supreme Court ruled last week that a woman pay her ex-husband 50,000 yen (approx. $535) for each time that she denied him access to visit their daughter. The mother had agreed to regular...
View ArticleJapanese man is Guinness record holder for longest time on death row
It’s certainly not a record to be proud of, but the Guinness World Records has certified 77-year-old Japanese prisoner Iwao Hakamada as being the world’s longest-serving death row inmate. Incarcerated...
View ArticleJapan Supreme Court upholds decision in Minamata disease case
Japan’s Supreme Court has upheld a decision by the Fukuoka High Court which posthumously recognizes Chie Mizoguchi as a victim of Minamata disease. The original ruling of the high court in 2012 was in...
View ArticleJapanese Supreme Court acquits police officer in Chinese trainee shooting
In June 2006, Japanese police office Manabu Hirata shot Luo Cheng, a Chinese trainee whom the police officer had come to arrest. Luo later died in the hospital after sustaining a gunshot wound in the...
View ArticleMinamata holds memorial service to commemorate 57th anniversary of namesake...
The city of Minamata in Kumamoto Prefecture held a memorial service for all the victims of the disease named after the city, to commemorate the 57th year since the government officially recognized the...
View ArticleGovernment to allow sales of almost all non-prescription drugs over the internet
The Japanese government has formally made adjustment in order to allow more than 99% of the country’s over-the-counter (OTC) medicines to be sold over the internet. While this sales method was...
View ArticleParolee says police abused authority to force him to confess for 1963 Saitama...
Parolee Kazuo Ishikawa is seeking a retrial to clear his name in the 1963 kidnap-murder of a girl from Saitama Prefecture for which he was convicted in 1964. Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents’...
View ArticleSupreme Court rejects appeal over life in prison for child killer
Japan’s Supreme Court sustains its decision this week to sentence Yoshihiro Yamaguchi to life imprisonment for killing a 3-year old girl two years ago. Yamaguchi’s lawyer appealed to the court on...
View ArticleSupreme Court throws out appeal against testimony of Aum Shinrikyo members
The highest court in the land has upheld the decision by the Tokyo District Court, allowing three former Aum Shinrikyo cult members on death row to testify in open court. The Supreme Court rejected the...
View ArticleJapan’s Supreme Court reckons amending Civil Code provision for illegitimate...
According to the Civil Code of Japan, “the share of an illegitimate child shall be half of that of a legitimate child.” However, advocates claim that such provision is an act of discrimination toward...
View ArticleHomeless Japanese citizens seen being denied the right to vote
The Japanese Constitution guarantees equal rights to its citizens, at least in theory. But in reality, not everyone has the privilege to exercise their rights. Homeless people in Japan, despite their...
View ArticleWhistleblowers sue Olympus for continuing to ignore court order
As Japanese camera and medical equipment makers Olympus still continue to struggle with restoring the company’s image recently ravaged by a corporate scandal in 2011, two more employee complainants...
View ArticleRFK Jr and Sea Shepherd take cause to Supreme Court against Japanese whalers
Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., together with the conservation group Sea Shepherd, has asked the US Supreme Court to
View ArticleUS Supreme Court rejects Sea Shepherd request to lift whaling injunction
The US Supreme Court has rejected a plea from environmental activist group Sea Shepherd that asked to have an injunction
View ArticleSea Shepherd to confront Japanese vessels after first whale harpooned
The animal activist group Sea Shepherd has said that Japan’s whaling fleet harpooned its first minke on Friday evening in
View ArticleEnvironment Ministry may have asked doctor to testify falsely in Minamata...
Last year in April, the Osaka High Court reversed a lower court ruling in 2010 that Kumamoto Prefectural Government ought
View ArticleTokyo court rules Japan’s 2012 election ‘unconstitutional’
On Wednesday the Tokyo High Court rule that the December 2012 House of Representatives election was unconstitutional due to the
View ArticleNagoya, Fukuoka courts agree December Lower House election was unconstitutional
Right after the lower house elections last December, two separate teams of lawyers filed 14 different lawsuits in eight high
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