Where the state kills in secret

Abstract

The secrecy that surrounds capital punishment in Japan is taken to extremes not seen in other nations. This article describes the Japanese state's policy of secrecy and explains how it emerged as the product of an historical imperative (the Meiji need to appear ‘civilized' to western powers) and the self-interested actions of powerful elites in the Occupation and in the Ministry of Justice. Prosecutors in Japan offer several justifications for their secrecy policy, none of which is cogent. If transparency and accountability are hallmarks of a healthy democracy, then the secrecy that conceals this system of capital punishment is decidedly undemocratic. Secrecy also helps explain the low salience of capital punishment in Japan, and it illustrates a Japanese penchant for governance through ‘bureaucratic informalism’. Central to this model of law is the elite's attempt to retain control over the processes of social conflict and change.