WS More or Less: Japan’s 99% Conviction Rate
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2020
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The fugitive former Nissan boss, Carlos Ghosn, has raised questions about justice in Japan. The government in Tokyo has defended its system, where 99% of prosecutions lead to conviction. Prof Colin Jones, from Doshisha Law School in Kyoto, explains what's behind this seemingly shocking statistic. And a listener asks if it’s true Canada’s is roughly the same. Toronto lawyer Kim Schofield sets them straight.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:03.6 | We're the programme that takes nebulous numbers and forms them into clusters of clarity. |
| 0:08.2 | And I'm Tim Haafard. |
| 0:14.1 | Yamaha has sounded a note of caution against musicians climbing into their instrument cases, |
| 0:19.6 | warning that it could lead to a tragic accident. |
| 0:22.4 | A number of people in Japan appear to have mimicked the method used allegedly |
| 0:26.8 | by the fugitive format Nissan Boss Carlos Gone to flee the country. |
| 0:30.9 | Yamaha pointed to people pictured in carp and double base cases |
| 0:35.5 | and urged, please use them correctly. |
| 0:41.3 | Gone himself told a press conference in Lebanon. |
| 0:44.5 | I did not escape justice. I fled injustice. |
| 0:50.4 | Japanese justice minister Masako Mori rejected that idea. |
| 0:54.9 | He has been propagating both within Japan and internationally false information |
| 1:02.6 | on Japan's legal system and its practice. |
| 1:05.8 | This is absolutely intolerable. |
| 1:08.4 | Royal listener Tim Maaston sent a question to us via more or less at bbc.co.uk. |
| 1:15.4 | Carlos Gone claimed that the conviction rate in Japan was 99%. |
| 1:20.2 | Can this be right? |
| 1:21.6 | I always thought that only authoritarian regimes like China had those kind of rates. |
| 1:26.1 | Looking at a Wikipedia page on conviction rates, it seems that the conviction rate in Canada is 97%. |
| 1:32.6 | I find the numbers for Japan and Canada very puzzling. |
| 1:36.1 | Well, let's ask Canada to politely wait its turn and start with Japan. |
... |
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