The Judicial Reform Council released on Monday a draft of its final report on structural legal reforms, calling for more lawyers and better public access to them, more public participation in the judiciary, and juries whose decisions would be nonbinding.
The advisory panel to the prime minister presented the 109-page draft earlier in the day at its 59th meeting. The council was inaugurated in July 1999 for a two-year term and consists of 13 people who are jurists, scholars, businesspeople or members of civic groups.
With the current climate of deregulation and globalization expected to place a greater burden on the legal system, the draft calls for more legal professionals and for the quality of the profession to be enhanced.