Circular Justice - An interview with Gen Takahashi

Written by Hayley Scanlon on 09 Apr 2014

As We've often seen in Japanese cinema, getting involved with the Japanese legal system is an absurd and often futile process. Gen Takahashi's latest film takes a look at the many problems and contradictions in the Japanese court system and we sat down with him to talk about the law and cinema at the film's UK premiere.

UK Anime: Good Afternoon and welcome to the UK, I believe you were here before promoting Confessions of a Dog? How are you enjoying the UK so far this visit?

Gen Takahashi: Actually I came here twenty years ago so it’s not my first time. I have very long-term friends in UK, especially in Moorgate, Canterbury. Usually I stay in Tokyo, the London landscape is very beautiful so I like the town.

UK Anime: Confessions of a Dog dealt quite strongly with police corruption, now this film is dealing with judicial corruption; perhaps those two systems are intertwined and feeding each other. The Courts just accept what the police say and the police feel they can do whatever they like because of the authority that society gives them. How do Japanese people feel about that problem, do they recognise it as a problem at all or do they just accept the authority of the police and courts?

Gen Takahashi: You mean Japanese People?

UK Anime: Yes, how does the general population feel, are they afraid of the legal system? 

Gen Takahashi: Ordinary Japanese people don’t care about that kind of subject. The present Japanese population never does anything against the government, they never demonstrate, that stays in the past. In France or the UK a couple of years ago, people were protesting against the government - of course that happened in Japan in the sixties and seventies, but now Japanese people just obey, live with very tough regulations pushing for new Japanese government.

Police organisation and justice systems never release information to ordinary people. I was told that in a Japanese court I couldn't shoot during the trial, but you can shoot the judges face before the start. It’s ridiculous. Everything is closed, so if they make unfair, illegal judgements people cannot know the truth - of course some Japanese freelance journalists argue with this kind of system, but mainstream media journalists are just employees in very flimsy newspaper companies so they never criticise the way government behaves. So, in Japan there are two kinds of journalist - one is freelance and one is some kind of an executive employee. Now it's changed a little bit, some people use the Internet and people can find the truth on the Internet easily.

So, it's changed a little bit but fundamentally the government still never changes - the Japanese people have already surrendered because that system has never changed. Now because of the Japanese economy and financial problems, people just focus on 'how can I get a good income', so you can’t see social issues clearly, so it’s a very good situation for government. 

UK Anime: You mentioned it a little bit just then, but could you just explain how the Japanese legal system works in terms of the court systems? It’s obviously very different from what we have in the West.

Gen Takahashi: For example, the jury system - there is no jury system in Japan. 

UK Anime: So it’s an inquisitorial system, the judge alone makes the decision on the case?

Gen Takahashi: Yes. When I made Confessions of a Dog, at that time I had to make a social issue movie story about police corruption very specifically. But this time, first I had to put more of a fictional taste into the story because I have to make this film for ordinary audiences. When I released Confessions of a Dog, almost all the theatres were fully booked, but almost all the audience were not ordinary people. They were very progressive and some kind of activist-type people. They were always interested in that kind of movie, but ordinary people... maybe they felt a little scared and they don’t want to watch that kind of thing straight, so now I changed my tactics.

UK Anime: This was raised at the audience Q&A too and it seemed that you haven’t seen the film, but there was a movie by Masayuki Suo a couple of years ago called “I Just Didn’t Do It” that was very much from the defendant’s perspective of how difficult it is to go through the Japanese courts. We were very lucky enough to have him over for a Q&A after his film courtesy of the Japan Foundation and he mentioned there were going to be some changes to the legal system after that film, possibly the introduction of lay judges, so I just wondered if you could talk a bit about that and whether that’s made any improvements to the Japanese court system?

Gen Takahashi: The government started to think about trying to introduce a new system - a jury equivalent, but it’s just one person. They changed it so that the jurors can come to the court like in America, but the huge difference is that within the jury there’s a professional person - a judge - included. The ‘jury’ don’t have any experience whatsoever and they back off so the judge really decides by himself anyway, and the jury just says that ‘I agree’, so it's kind of just playing a game that looks like the jury system is going on but there is nothing there. It's a very ridiculous new system because the government and the state court they can say "see, we’re open", you know? But it’s just a game. Mr Suo wasn’t wrong, there was a new system but it only looks as if it’s changed, nothing really happened actually. 

UK Anime: That film concentrates quite heavily on the 99.9% conviction rate and I thought it was quite interesting that near the end Megumi says ‘well, everybody knows this is just for show’ - the trial is just a formality, we aren’t trying to find anything out here. We wondered if that’s something everybody knows and if there’s any point in holding trials at all - is that something Japanese people think and worry about or is it just another accepted reality?

Gen Takahashi: There are so many people who just don’t know. Not many people are familiar with the term “court case” in Japan probably; we don’t talk about it. Not many court cases happen, so maybe they aren’t really familiar with the term ‘court’. Ordinary Japanese people feel that’s not their business  - it’s nothing to do with me unless I commit a crime. So that’s their perspective - if they don’t commit a crime the criminal justice system is nothing to do with them. Basically, the present Japanese nation don’t understand 'human rights'. We are part of the G8 summits et cetera, but we were bottom of everything so we’re not taking in immigrants and so on. There are so many things we don’t know about human rights.