ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the Justice System Reform Council (JSRC) caused lay judges to re-enter the Japanese criminal justice picture, even if there were no popular calls for their return. The JSRC aims were thus about much more than reforming the law so that it might more easily serve people’s individual and business interests. The chapter addresses the Japanese-style penal populism and the legal reforms that it has brought forth, notably the new criminal justice role for victims of crime as well as the reforms relevant for lay judges’ sentencing decisions. It also addresses developments relevant for the roles of social workers, scientific experts and forensic psychiatrists in Japanese criminal justice. The chapter also shows that technological and scientific developments have resulted in an increasingly important role for these experts especially, but not exclusively, in relation to the DNA evidence.
