ABSTRACT
Since Carlos Ghosn’s dramatic escape from Japan at the end of last year and the request for his extradition from Lebanon, (social) media inside and outside Japan have been full of criticism about several aspects of Japan’s criminal legal system and how these represent a challenge to cooperation. Inter alia, an “unfair” lack of attorney representation during Ghosn’s interrogation as a suspect and “inhumane” pretrial detention (“hostage justice”) has been the focus of criticism in, for example, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. This chapter aims to shed light on the history of legal reforms of the laws regulating the rights of suspects and the right to access a lawyer in Japan. It then compares these reforms to those in EU member States as a result of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case law (the Salduz case) and EU law, notably the directive on access to a lawyer, looking at both the law in the books and the law in practice. The chapter argues that the issues related to the rights of the suspects that Europe has been coping with are not that different to those in Japan. The impact of the reforms that have been introduced in Europe in this respect, moreover, have been limited by a variety of social, legal and historical forces. The chapter will finally compare the two legal regimes and inquire to what extent existing legal differences can represent an obstacle to judicial cooperation between EU Member States and Japan, including both mutual legal assistance and extradition.
