Minister wants swift executions

2007-09-25 12:35

Tokyo - Japan's outgoing justice minister on Tuesday called for quicker executions, saying death row inmates should be hanged "automatically" within six months of losing their last appeal.

Japan is the only major industrial nation other than the United States that practises the death penalty, despite having one of the world's lowest crime rates.

Kunio Hatoyama, who resigned on Tuesday with a change of government, said that Japan needed capital punishment because "we have been seeing extremely violent, vicious crimes in recent years".

Capital punishment "plays a significant role in deterring serious crimes", he told his final press conference.

"As you are well aware, there is an extremely small number of people who say the death penalty should be completely dropped. But more people wish to keep the death penalty and their numbers are increasing."

He said he wanted Japan to implement a little-enforced law that requires the execution of inmates within six months of their final sentences.

Currently, the justice minister signs off on every execution.

"I think we might want to consider a system in which it takes place automatically and objectively without the justice minister's involvement," Hatoyama said, saying signing off placed an emotional burden on the minister.

Japan resumed executions last year after prime minister Shinzo Abe took charge and has since executed 10 people.

Japan had no executions for 15 months until last year as a previous justice minister, Seiken Sugiura, said the death penalty went against his Buddhist beliefs.

Hatoyama has not signed off on any executions since he took office last month in a reshuffle by Abe.

But incoming Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is widely expected to remove Hatoyama from the cabinet as he backed his more conservative rival, Taro Aso, to be premier.

- AFP