A new system that gives ordinary citizens in Japan a role in deciding the outcome of criminal trials debuts in less than three years.
As the country prepares for the "saibanin" (lay judge) system, perhaps the biggest change to the legal system since the end of the Allied Occupation, the new makeup of the bench has caught the attention of legal experts and East Asian scholars in the United States.
The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana has launched the "Japanese Juries and Democracies Program" to study the ongoing judicial reforms in Japan and to promote exchanges of information on the role of laypeople in the court systems of Japan and the United States.