Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama's recent comments about videotaped police interrogations turning Japan into a "paradise for criminals" are further evidence of the fact that he is completely out of touch with reality and unfit for any sort of elected position.
If his views are shared by the majority of Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers, it only goes to show that they are more interested in how good a high conviction rate looks on paper -- regardless of the innocence or guilt of those convicted -- than in actually seeing justice done.
If the police were consistently trying to build strong cases against criminal suspects instead of merely relying on forced confessions, they would have nothing to fear from interview recordings.
Hopefully the people of Japan will finally see Hatoyama and his cronies for what they really are at the next election, and consign them to the electoral oblivion they richly deserve.
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