The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association has publicized guidelines aimed at stamping out bias in newspaper reports on criminal trials to be presided over by lay judges together with professional judges. The lay judge system will be introduced by May 2009. As the guidelines declare, it is hoped that newspapers will seek to balance the need for a fair trial with the need to uphold freedom of the press.
The guidelines are a response to proposed legislation — by the same government judiciary reform panel that has sought to introduce the lay judge system — to punish those who obstruct trial fairness under the new system. The panel had said mass media reports that induce presuppositions on the part of lay judges would constitute obstruction of trial fairness. JNPEA opposed the proposal and succeeded in preventing its enactment; instead, JNPEA started work on writing guidelines.
The crux of the guidelines is that newspapers must strictly stick to the principle that defendants are presumed innocent unless they are found guilty at trial. Under the guidelines, newspapers must avoid editorializing to the effect that pretrial confessions are totally true, limit profiles of defendants to the information necessary to understand the nature and background of the crimes, and take sufficient care to prevent "expert" comments on criminal cases from leaving the impression that a defendant's guilt is a foregone conclusion.
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