Constitution of Japan - Human Rights Guarantees in Practice

Human Rights Guarantees in Practice

See also: Human rights in Japan

International bodies such as the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Amnesty International have argued that many of the guarantees for individual rights contained in the Japanese constitution have not been effective in practice. Such critics have also argued that, contrary to Article 98, and its requirement that international law be treated as part of the domestic law of the state, human rights treaties to which Japan is a party are seldom enforced in Japanese courts.

In one study, the conviction rate in contested Japanese trials in 1994 was found to be 98.8%, while the comparable conviction rate in contested United States federal trials in 1994 was 30.9%. The study concluded that this was due to the limited budgets for prosecutors in Japan compared to the United States, leading them to prosecute only the most solid cases, rather than due to bias by judges.

Read more about this topic:  Constitution Of Japan

Famous quotes containing the words human, rights, guarantees and/or practice:

    “[The Settlement House] must be grounded in a philosophy whose foundation is on the solidarity of the human race, a philosophy which will not waver when the race happens to be represented by a drunken woman or an idiot boy.”
    —Jane Addams (1860–1935)

    “What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.”
    —H.L. (Henry Lewis)

    “... if a person is to be unconventional, he must be amusing or he is intolerable: for, in the nature of the case, he guarantees you nothing but amusement. He does not guarantee you any of the little amenities by which society has assured itself that, if it must go to sleep, it will at least sleep in a comfortable chair.”
    —Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)

    “In my practice I’ve seen how people have allowed their humanity to drain away. Only it happens slowly instead of all at once. I didn’t seem to mind.... All of us, a little bit. We harden our hearts. Grow callous. Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realize how precious it is to us, how dear.”
    —Daniel Mainwaring (1902–1977)