The Supreme Court rejected on Tuesday an appeal by the former director of a Tokyo hospital who was convicted of violating the Medical Practitioners Law by failing to notify police of a malpractice death within 24 hours.
As a result, a lower court-imposed suspended one-year prison term for Kiyoshi Okai, 68, former head of the metropolitan Hiroo Hospital, will stand. He was also fined 20,000 yen. Okai's sentence was suspended for three years.
At issue was whether the law's obligation to report unnatural deaths to authorities violates Article 38 of the Constitution, which states that "no person shall be compelled to testify against himself."