Overview
- The Justice Ministry, which settled on a final draft Tuesday, will write a principle ban on prosecutors’ appeals against decisions to start retrials into the main body of the Criminal Procedure Law.
- The draft deletes the current rule that lets prosecutors file an immediate appeal to a high court and allows both immediate and Supreme Court special appeals only when there are “sufficient grounds,” raising the bar to overturn a retrial order.
- Liberal Democratic Party committees are set to review the draft Wednesday, and the government is aiming for cabinet approval and submission to the Diet around Friday.
- The plan marks a compromise after more than a month of talks among the Justice Ministry, the LDP, and the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, following party pushback to keeping the ban only in supplementary provisions seen as less durable.
- A prior advisory panel warned against a ban to protect legal stability, but backers say tighter limits could speed relief in wrongful conviction cases by cutting appeal-driven delays after a court orders a retrial.