Summary: Volunteer former prosecutors' opinion on the extension of the retirement age of the Chief Prosecutor of Tokyo High Prosecutors
I have tried to summarize the opinion posted on the following page from a personal perspective.
NOTE: This document is automatically translated from the Japanese version through DeepL translator.
- According to the Prosecutor's Office Law, the retirement age is 65 for the Prosecutor General and 63 for other prosecutors, and there is no provision that allows for an extension of the retirement age.
- Tokyo High Prosecutor General Hiromu Kurokawa, who will turn 63 on Feb. 8, 2020, was scheduled to step down in accordance with the Public Prosecutor's Office Law
- However, on January 31, 2020, a cabinet decision was made to extend Kurokawa's retirement age until August 7.
- Kurokawa remains in office despite having reached retirement age
- The retirement age is set by the Prosecutor's Office Act, so there must be a procedure for amending the law. But only a cabinet decision to extend the retirement age.
- The Cabinet's decision to extend Kurokawa's retirement age is speculated to fill the position of prosecutor general in early August
- The National Civil Service Act allows for the extension of the retirement age under certain conditions.
- The Cabinet voted to extend Kurokawa's retirement age on the grounds that the State Civil Service Law is applicable because prosecutors are also state officials.
- However, prosecutors have a prosecutor's office law. The National Civil Service Act and the Prosecutor's Office Act have a general and special law relationship.
- There is a doctrine that "special law trumps general law."
- Since the Prosecutor's Office Law provides for a retirement age of 63, the State Civil Service Law (general law) does not apply to the retirement age of prosecutors (i.e., the special law, the Prosecutor's Office Law, takes precedence)
- This was explicitly stated by the then Director General of the Appointments Office of the National Personnel Authority in 1981.
- Therefore, the Cabinet's interpretation that the State Civil Service Act applies to prosecutors does not hold.
3. even if the State Civil Service Act were to be applied, there is insufficient reason to meet the statutory requirement
- Prime Minister Abe made a statement to the effect that "I have decided to change the traditional interpretation that the State Civil Service Law applies to prosecutors as well."
- This is a declaration that the interpretation and operation of the law has been changed only by the Cabinet's interpretation without going through the procedure of law revision which is the authority of the Diet.
- This attitude is reminiscent of Louis XIV's "I am the State."
- This stance could lead to the denial of the triumvirate.
- Even if we were to apply the National Civil Service Law, if we were to follow its rules, there would have to be so many cases that only Mr. Kurokawa could handle them.
- Is there any special reason why Mr. Kurokawa's successor, the prosecutor general, can't solve the Ghosn defendant's fugitive case as well?
- I don't see any reason (reason that meets the legal requirements) to extend the retirement age of Mr. Kurokawa's office and keep him as the prosecutor general.
4. the power of the prosecution is killed when political power intervenes in the personnel of the prosecution
- A proposal to amend the Public Prosecutor's Office Law to raise the retirement age of prosecutors from 63 to 65 on April 16, 2020, was discussed.
- The amendment is being submitted in tandem with the proposed amendment to the National Civil Service Law, which will gradually increase the retirement age of state civil servants from 60 to 65 years old.
- In addition, the cabinet decision to extend Kurokawa's retirement age, which was sought by the opposition, was not withdrawn, and deliberations have begun without a resolution on the issue.
- The proposed amendment to the Prosecutor's Office Law provides that "with certain reasons deemed necessary by the Cabinet, the Deputy Chief Prosecutor and the Chief Prosecutor may extend the retirement age of the Deputy Chief Prosecutor and the Chief Prosecutor within one year, even if they have reached the retirement age of 63."
- This provision is an attempt to tolerate the illegal resolution that extended Kurokawa's retirement age after the fact.
- Until now, the convention has been that politics does not interfere with prosecutorial personnel.
- We believe that this proposed amendment to the Prosecutor's Office Law is intended to justify the intervention of political power in prosecutorial personnel, to contain prosecutorial moves that are not in line with the regime's wishes, and to kill the power of the prosecution.
5. expects many members of parliament, the legal profession and the public to oppose the proposed amendments to the Prosecutor's Office Law
- In the 1976 Lockheed bribery scandals, prosecutors overcame a number of difficulties to arrest Kakuei Tanaka and other political and business tycoons.
- There have been some shameful cases in the history of the prosecution, but that doesn't mean that the prosecution can't live up to the people's trust when it has atrophied, when the regime has even seized personnel power and interfered with the exercise of the right to prosecute.
- We must be a national society where what is right is done right.
- If the Cabinet does not rescind the provision for extending the retirement age in the proposed amendment to the Prosecutor's Office Law, we hope that many members of the National Assembly, the legal profession, and the wholehearted public will take action to oppose and stop it, transcending the boundaries of the ruling and opposition parties.
Original source: https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASN5H4RTHN5HUTIL027.html