Japan
Oversight and accountability in Japan
Eleven citizens chosen by lot who may review a prosecutor’s decision not to charge — and, on a second resolution, compel a prosecution the prosecutor declined to bring, conducted by a lawyer the court appoints.
Facts verified:
This is a static reference page, not a live feed — check anything you intend to act on with the official source.
AnalysisJapan has a mechanism most systems on this platform do not: a body of ordinary citizens with the power to overturn a prosecutor’s decision not to charge. It is the channel a reader is least likely to know about and most likely to need, because the decision it reviews — the decision to do nothing — is the one that in most systems is reviewable by nobody.
- 検察審査会 — Committee for Inquest of Prosecution, Arts. 1 and 2
- Committees sit at the seats of district courts and their branches designated by Cabinet Order, and the Act states their purpose in its first article: “公訴権の実行に関し民意を反映させてその適正を図るため” — to reflect the popular will in the exercise of the power to prosecute, and thereby secure its propriety. Article 2 gives the committee two kinds of business: examining whether a prosecutor’s decision not to prosecute was proper, and making recommendations on the improvement of prosecutorial administration.
- Who sits — Art. 4
- A committee is composed of eleven members “くじで選定した” — selected by lot, from those holding the right to vote in House of Representatives elections within the committee’s district. Not appointed, not nominated, and not drawn from the legal profession.
- What it may resolve — Art. 39-5
- Three forms of resolution: that prosecution is appropriate, that the decision not to prosecute was improper, or that it was proper. A resolution that prosecution is appropriate requires a majority of eight of the eleven.
- 起訴議決 — the resolution that prosecution shall be brought, Art. 41-6
- Available only on a second examination, and again requiring eight or more. Before making it the committee must give the prosecutor an opportunity to attend the committee meeting and state an opinion — the prosecutor is heard before being overridden, rather than merely informed afterwards.
- Who then prosecutes — Arts. 41-9 and 41-10
- After such a resolution the district court designates an attorney from among lawyers to perform the duties of a prosecutor, and that designated attorney must bring the prosecution promptly, subject to stated exceptions such as the death of the suspect. The prosecution proceeds without the prosecution service, conducted by a lawyer the court appointed for the purpose.
- Public safety commissions (police oversight)
- The National Police Agency’s own English overview states that the National Public Safety Commission and the Agency constitute the national police organisation, that the Commission supervises the Agency, and that “the Prime Minister is not empowered to exercise direct command or control over the Commission”. Each prefecture has the authority to carry out police duties, with its own commission.
AnalysisThe two channels on this page answer different questions and neither substitutes for the other. The committee reviews a decision not to charge; the public safety commissions supervise the police organisation. Nothing read here establishes a route for a complaint about the conduct of an individual officer, and none is asserted.
How this system compares with others on four structural questions about oversight — including how far each arrangement actually reaches — is set out in who watches the justice system, and how far they reach.
Sources
Sources
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications — e-Gov (Japan) · Legislation · 1948 · link verified 2026-09-18
SCOPE: the Committee for Inquest of Prosecution, and nothing else in Japanese oversight. NOT MONITORED, and the reason is specific rather than an omission: the readable route is the portal’s law-data endpoint, which serves XML. This platform’s normalizer supports HTML and plain text, so an observation here returns `unsupported-content` — a statement about our tooling and not about the document. Declaring anchors that nothing can check would be worse than declaring none. The authoritative Japanese text, read directly from the official law-data route; the portal’s rendered pages are client-side and serve a shell to an automated request, while this address serves the statute itself. There is no English translation of this Act in the Ministry of Justice database, so every quotation here is Japanese and no English wording is attributed to the statute. Supports Art. 1, that committees are placed at the seats of district courts and their branches designated by Cabinet Order “公訴権の実行に関し民意を反映させてその適正を図るため” — to reflect the popular will in the exercise of the power to prosecute and secure its propriety. Supports Art. 2, that the committee’s business is the examination of whether a prosecutor’s decision not to prosecute was proper, and recommendations on the improvement of prosecutorial administration. Supports Art. 4, that a committee is composed of eleven members “くじで選定した” — selected by lot from those holding the right to vote in House of Representatives elections within the committee’s district. Supports Art. 39-5, which provides three forms of resolution: that prosecution is appropriate, that the decision not to prosecute was improper, and that it was proper; a resolution that prosecution is appropriate requires a majority of eight or more. Supports Art. 41-6(1), that a 起訴議決 — a resolution that prosecution SHALL be brought — is available only at the second examination and likewise requires eight or more, and that the committee must first give the prosecutor an opportunity to attend and state an opinion. Supports Arts. 41-9 and 41-10, that after such a resolution the district court designates an attorney from among lawyers to perform the duties of a prosecutor, who must bring the prosecution promptly, subject to stated exceptions such as the death of the suspect. This record establishes nothing about how often any of this happens, and no claim about frequency or outcome is made from it.
National Police Agency (NPA), Japan · Government publication · 2020 · link verified 2026-09-13
The NPA's own English overview; figures and wording extracted directly from the report PDF. Supports: that the National Public Safety Commission (NPSC) and the National Police Agency (NPA) constitute the national police organisation and the NPSC supervises the NPA; that the Police Act empowers the national government to establish a central police organisation 'to control and supervise prefectural police forces on matters of national concern'; that the NPSC 'draws up basic policies and regulations, coordinates police administration on matters of national concern and sets general standards'; that each prefecture has 'the authority to carry out police duties'; that Regional Police Bureaus are subordinate to the NPA; that police boxes (Koban) and residential police boxes (Chuzaisho) are subordinate units of police stations; that the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is the prefectural police of Tokyo; and that 'the Prime Minister is not empowered to exercise direct command or control over the Commission'. CRUCIALLY, it supports national COORDINATION, STANDARDS and SUPERVISION ON MATTERS OF NATIONAL CONCERN, with operational policing carried out by the prefectures — NOT a single nationally commanded operational police force. Does not support operational detail. RE-READ on 2026-09-13 for its rank section, which supports verbatim: ‘Police officers are divided into nine ranks: Superintendent General, Senior Commissioner, Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner, Superintendent, Chief Inspector, Inspector, Sergeant, and Police Officer. On top of the nine ranks, the highest position in the Japanese police is held by the NPA Commissioner General.’ It also supports that newly promoted Sergeants and Inspectors train at regional police schools and that a Chief Inspector Appointment Course is run at the National Police Academy.