Japan implements the principle of separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers. Judicial power belongs to the Supreme Court and its subordinate courts, and the Supreme Court has the right to make final judgments on all legal disputes. Since 2009, the jury system has been implemented. At the trial site, professional judges and citizen representatives will make a unanimous judgment. Cases to which the adjudication system applies are related trials of specific major crimes in formal proceedings (first instance) tried by local courts, such as homicide, injury to death, robbery causing casualties, arson of non-idle buildings, kidnapping and extortion.
Litigation in Japan is a time-consuming matter, and it will take half a year at the earliest to get a result. If the case is complicated and involves many witnesses, it usually lasts for two or three years. Let's talk about the judicial process with civil litigation cases first.
The lawsuit begins with the plaintiff submitting a complaint to the court, which contains all the demands made to the other party and the reasons for these demands. After being examined and accepted by the court, once accepted, a copy of the complaint will be sent to the defendant. After that, the presiding judge may appoint the time for the first oral argument and summon the parties. If the case is complicated and needs to be prepared, the presiding judge shall, after listening to the opinions of the parties, determine the time for the debate preparation procedure and then summon the parties.
After entering the trial, in the defense stage, it is basically to exchange written materials and occasionally use oral expressions, that is, simply read written materials. After that, decide the time of the next trial. Generally, the judge and the lawyers of both sides discuss together and choose a day when everyone is free. This day may take a month at the earliest, because judges and lawyers are too busy. In Tokyo, for example, each judge usually has more than 200 cases to deal with, and many judges don't even have time to make adequate preparations at the initial stage of litigation, so they can only wait for several rounds to summarize the materials and read them together. I'm a little unlucky. If there is a golden week, summer vacation, or the lawyer is late (the court will not wait for people), the next court session may be several months later.
The investigation and evidence collection stage includes witness inquiry, party inquiry, appraisal, documentary evidence and inquest. In witness interrogation, one lawyer will first ask various questions to the witness, and the witness will answer them, and then the other lawyer will ask questions, and finally the judge will make supplementary questions. This link is also quite time-consuming. Generally speaking, first of all, a lawyer applies to call witnesses in the next trial and explains the time spent on the inquiry. Then, another lawyer explained the time required for the investigation. Finally, the judge figured out how long it would take to ask this question. Once this time is fixed, it is difficult to change.
The procedure of asking the parties is the same, but because the parties know the truth best, they are also asked first in actual operation. Appraisal is the act of assisting the court. The expert report rule of thumb itself or rule of thumb is applicable to the judgment of specific information instructed by the court. A well-understood example is the report made by forensic doctors in court. In Forensic Pioneer 3, when Sir Boo confronted his wife in court, he relied on empirical methods. Documents and documentary evidence generally refer to some written evidence, including pictures, videos and recordings. An inquest, in short, is to give the objects related to the case to the court for experiments.
On the basis of all the evidence, the lawyers of both sides finally had a final debate. This is often the climax of the play. Lawyer Gu Meimen opened the mouth gun mode and gave the judge and the opposing lawyer a final blow.
The two sides can reach a settlement before the verdict comes out. At present, in Japan, 80% of lawsuits are finally settled by settlement. On the one hand, for judges, reconciliation can reduce a lot of workload. Because the judge should collect evidence, read the testimony of all witnesses, distinguish which evidence is beneficial to the defendant and which is beneficial to the plaintiff, and judge whether the evidence is true or false. Next, it is conceivable that the oral testimony of witnesses should be organized into written words with special grammar stipulated by the court, and complicated cases with numerous evidences are encountered. On the other hand, it is also a good thing for the parties, because after the judgment is reached, both parties are often dissatisfied and then appeal or refuse compensation. In contrast, the possibility of successful execution of the judgment after settlement is much greater. However, even if you enter the reconciliation process, it will take a lot of time, and a one-year negotiation period is normal.
Different from criminal judgment, the scene of civil judgment is relatively deserted. Because basically no one will go to the court to listen to the results of civil judgments, many times the parties and lawyers are not there, and only the judge will quickly read the judgment in an empty court and leave in a hurry. Isn't it a little embarrassing? Moreover, it is very frustrating for judges to write judgments. There must be no mistakes in every word and sentence. He must be very nervous when he writes. However, what he wrote so hard has no audience. The lawyer will call the court on the night of the verdict and ask for the verdict.
Besides spending a lot of time, it also costs a lot of money. Generally, it will be indicated in the judgment that all litigation costs will be borne by the losing party. Legal fees include stamp duty, postage and daily salary of witnesses. Stamp duty is a handling fee paid to the court, and the court will accept it only after paying the money. Postage is the cost of sending summons, documents, etc. In the course of the proceedings. The daily salary of a witness is the salary paid to the witness. Then there is the lawyer's fee that both parties have to bear. In the play, we can often see that Gumeimen lawyers will charge high fees. This lawyer's fee actually includes two parts, one is the entrustment fee, which was paid at the beginning, and the other is the remuneration, which can only be obtained after winning the case. If a lawyer wants to get the remuneration, he must ensure that the client can get the income after the judgment, but it will be gone after losing the case. Therefore, it is understandable that lawyers charge high fees. After all, at the beginning, there is no guarantee that they will win the case. They spent a lot of time and energy on this case, and finally lost the lawsuit and got nothing.
The real lawsuit may be very different from Legal High, but this drama is really good and highly recommended.