Lay participation in criminal courts opens up the inner workings of justice administration and forces the parties to take more active roles in trials, legal experts at a five-day conference that kicked off Thursday in Tokyo said.
But the panelists, hailing from nine countries, warned that public participation is not a panacea and that juries would not necessarily prevent wrongful convictions of innocent people.
The conference, titled "Lay Participation in the Judicial Process in Japan," is sponsored by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and was opened to the public on Saturday. It moved to Kyoto on Sunday and will end in Osaka today.