최근 일본의 형사소송법 관련 판례 동향

Some Reflections on recent Supreme Court Cases in Japan

The Supreme Court of Japan has delivered some interesting as well as important opinions in recent years, including GPS investigations, lay judge criminal procedure, admissibility of criminal records as evidence. This article reports some of them briefly, and then focuses on the Supreme Court decision on GPS investigations delivered in March 2017. Article 197 of Law of Criminal Procedure demands that “coercive” investigation measures should be specially prescribed in a statute. To investigate serial theft case, police attached a GPS tracker to suspect’s vehicles for six months without judicial approval. The question is whether the installation of a GPS tracking device on suspect’s vehicle violates individual rights whatsoever that should be written in a statute. Opinion of the Court held that it invades individual’s privacy and should not be engaged without statutory bases. However, the Court didn’t specify whether it constitutes a trespass, nor how it violates reasonable expectation of privacy, how it is different from a tail, etc. After the decision, National Police Agency ordered not to engage GPS investigations, and sooner or later, the Japanese Government must enact comprehensive GPS legislation.