My opinion of this week(511):
Participation of injured persons to judgment
Legislative Council of the Ministry of Justice has submitted a draft plan
for the participation of injured persons to a court judgment. So far in
any court judgments, there are no room for injured parties to participate
in court judgment process at all. All they can do is to come to a court and
listen to what's going on at courts. They may enter the witness-box on
the request of prosecutors or defense councils but it is all what they
can do as far as court process is concerned.
In this new draft plan, injured parties can participate in closing argument
with prosecutors. This is really epoch-making court process which has never
been tried before in Japan.
It is hard to guess the sentiment of injured people who suffered some serious
criminals such as killing or sex-related crimes against their infant children.
In such case, we often observe that those injured families worked hard to
punish criminals so that they are sentenced to death at some extreme cases.
We are puzzled very much to see that those injured people even devote their
life to work for making criminal sentenced to death in court judgment. We
understand their real sentiment first time when we know the whole background
about what happened to those injured parties.
From outsider point of vies, having such kind of sentiment of revenge seems
to be a feeling of very personal one of injured party. We should never say
that way just by one word. The feeling may come not only come from personal
sentiment but also from social viewpoint that such crime should never be
repeated again in the future without wasting lives of their families.
The public court judgments exist to punish such crimes to avoid that would
not happen again in the future. Participation of injured parties to court
decision is very necessary from social point of view as Legislative Council
suggested.
Such injured party participation systems are already introduced in various
advanced countries such as US and Europe. But there involved some basic
problems to make the whole system work. The system is not to protect the
basic right of suffered parties but to make fair social judgment from
overall legal and social point of views.
We must wait for further discussion on the draft plan at the council so
that this will become a law in near future. I personally agree with this
directional movement at any rate.
2007/2/3
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(512):
Qualification of a good teacher
"Democratic Party of Japan submitted the counter plan for Revision of
Schoolteachers' Licensing System" Asahi Newspaper Feb.8
There were a number of misconducts of school teachers reported in
newspapers these days. Some teachers at elementary schools and junior
high schools participated themselves in some bullying at their class
rooms. There is a formidable teacher who took pornographic photograph
of students in his class. Those are a number of such unbelievable news
and there might exist many more such vicious teachers at school these
days.
Many confusions at school today come basically from lack of ethics
education at home according to my opinion. But it is also true that
lack of ethics of children derives from the lack of training and
teaching at school. Schools are not managed enough in that respect due
to lack of leadership of principal and lack of capacity of teacher
in that regards at class rooms.
I agree with the idea of the Ministry of Education and Science that
education boards of each cities will review the qualification of school
teachers every ten years. Every teachers will be sent to training center
to refresh their motivation and skills as school teachers. I think that
those process are very necessary to refresh their mind and skills.
I also agree with the counterproposal proposed by Democratic Party of Japan
to take longer years to train school teachers from four years to six years
just like the license of medical doctors. They are trained for four years
concerning basic skills as teachers and for another two years as intern to
get trained at actual classrooms. That is really an good idea which should
be considered to be included to revise the law.
Cultivating good school teachers is one of the most important subject
to improve a number of problems at school today. This is an issue which
should be discussed by suprapartisan groups at the diet.
Qualification of good teacher are not only skills and knowledge about
teaching subjects but also fundamental quality as human being. The latter
may be more important as a matter of fact as a qualification for a good
teacher.
The qualification may not be checked just by paper test. The qualification
may be checked by principals and vice principals during their internship
period at school. Some group interviews may be necessary at the final stage of
the selection examination.
Since the training period gets longer just like medical doctors, their
remuneration should be much higher compared with the present one although
whether or not that is considered in the revision of the law.
The most important thing to make any new teacher training system work is
to create a general atmosphere in our society that school teachers are respected
much more by students at school and by people at communities.
2007/2/10
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week:(513)
Decisive battle of Tokyo gubernatorial election
Screening of candidates from Democratic Party of Japan for Tokyo gubernatorial
election in April is not going well. Shiro Asano, the former Governor of
Miyagi Prefecture is now one most possible candidate, but he is not so
eager to accept the candidacy at the moment. Several other candidates
including some famous TV casters who were asked to be the candidate by
DPJ also denied the possibility.
Naoto Kan, Deputy Representative of DPJ and Seiji Maehara, the former
Representative of DPJ are also included in the possible candidates. It
seems that there exists some possibility for Seiji Maehara to accept the
candidacy but Naoto Kan seems to have no such intention at all.
Shintarou Ishihara, the Governor of Tokyo will run again and he is not
quite so strong as before for he has several issues concerning spending
of travel expenses for his fourth son and entertainment expenses from
public fund.But he still keeps more than fifty percent support from
citizen of Tokyo according to a recent popular vote for his strong
leadership and policy implementation capacity. His proposal to hold
the second Olympic Game in Tokyo also seems to have a good support from
electorates in Tokyo.
Regardless such situation in Tokyo, the gubernatorial election in April
is very important for DPJ and they must win in this election to win the
following House of Representative election in July. If they could win in
April, they could win in July as well.
From this point of view, I wonder why DPJ is still wondering so much to
select a candidate for the gubernatorial election. According to my belief
they must select either Naoto Kan or Seiji Maehara as a candidate. Naoto
Kan seems to be the best choice and several mass media forecast that
DPJ could win in the election if Naoto Kan run for it. I agree with that
view personally. He may be the only one candidate who could win against
Shintarou Ishihara in all respects.
Nevertheless, Naoto Kan seems to have no intention to run for the election
unfortunately. Ichirou Ozawa, Representative of DPJ also denied the
possibility of his candidacy saying Naoto Kan is very necessary man as
a top executive of the Party. But I think the message is wrong.
It is the day of local autonomy. One typical example is that the
Government itself is now starting to discuss possible introduction of
Dosyusei(regional system) in this country in near future. The Prime
Minister will be elected from governors of regions in the future
as we see now in US.
I am very sorry if Naoto Kan and Ozawa lack this kind of view. It is
very possible that Naoto Kan will be able to be the Prime Minister of
Japan after he worked as the governor of Tokyo for one term or two.
DPJ should select this option if they wish to win in the election in
April and in July.
I am not necessarily a dedicated supporter for DPJ. But I do hope that
the party should take the power once in Japanese politics replacing
Liberal Democratic Party. This is very necessary to improve the quality
of democracy and politics in Japan.
It is my sincere hope that DPJ could now make a right decision now on
the selection of a candidate for coming election in April.
2007/2/17
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(514):
Baby Post
Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto plans to set up the country's first "baby hatch"
where mothers are able to drop off new born and unwanted babies. Jikei Hospital
explains they will begin to install the hatch as soon as they obtain permission
from local public health authorities and Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor.
The Ministry did not necessarily admit the plan to go ahead to install such
box but they say there is at least no laws which prohibits such conducts.
I have never heard of such a system until I read this article listed in
Yahoo news. I read the fact that the system seems to be functioning without
major problems in one of a baby care center in Germany.
In along with the news article at Yahoo site, there is an questionnaire on this
system asking whether you agree with it or not. I have posted the affirmative
vote without seeing the summary result so far. I was satisfied to find the
result of the vote that about 60% of people were affirmative about the system.
Hospital director Shoichi Hasuda says the baby hatch “is an emergency measure
and it is not aimed at encouraging parents to abandon babies.” Yes, that's it.
I fully agree with this message.
But while I read many other news and comments expressed from several central
Government authorities later on, I found there expressed various concerns to
introduce such system in this country.
One big question raised was of course, whether the system would encourage
the abandonment of a baby that is a crime punishable by up to five years in
prison. The Criminal Affairs Bureau of the Justice Ministry declined to
comment on the legality of the hospital’s plan. The Ministry of Health,
Welfare and Labor also seems to be very uncertain about it.
I understand some of those development. This is a good first concrete step to
save valuable lives of abandoned babies. I do hope and believe that a number
of discussion will be made on this system from various views including legal,
social, humanistic, ethical and religious point of views from now on.
2007/2/24
Tadashi HAYASE
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