The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945 by Ramon H. Myers

Author:Ramon H. Myers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2020-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

COLONIAL JUDICIARY AND ITS RELATIONS WITH JAPANESE COURTS

Judicially Karafuto was a part of metropolitan Japan. As early as 1907 (the same year the ORG of Karafuto was promulgated) the Organic Law of the Japanese Law Courts (Saibanshō kōseihō) was extended to that colony, making its judicial system an integral part of the Japanese judiciary. Thus, a decision of the single local court in Karafuto could be appealed to the Court of Appeals in Sapporo, Hokkaido, whose judgment could be appealed further to the Supreme Court of Japan, a feature duplicated in no other colony. In the Karafuto court Japanese laws were used except for cases involving only the indigenes, in which case special regulation (imperial ordinances, justice minister’s decrees or governor’s executive ordinances) or native custom could be applied. All judges appointed by the Ministry of Justice were protected by the constitution against dismissal without due cause. Moreover, when the Imperial Diet enacted in 1918 the kyotsūhō or the Coordination Law to provide a number of guidelines for the application of various laws to civil and criminal cases involving the jurisdiction of more than one colony, Karafuto was singled out to be regarded judicially as a part of the naichi.

In the Kantōshū and the Nan’yō the constitution was not applicable, and judicature was considered a part of the executive functions of the colonial governors. Accordingly, judges in both colonies were appointed and could be dismissed at will by the colonial governors. (In the Kantōshū this power was transferred to the Japanese ambassador to Manchukuo after 1934.) Both colonies adopted the bi-level court system, with emphasis on speed and efficiency, namely, one high court (kōtō hōin) and several local courts (chihō hōin), the judgment of the high court being final. In the Kantōshū after 1924, however, two divisions were created in the high court—fukushinbu and jōkokubu (both are translated as division of appeal)—with the latter, jōkokubu, functioning as the colonial supreme court for appeals of very limited nature. The former, fukushinbu, had jurisdiction over appeals against judgments of the local courts and Japanese consuls in Manchukuo, where Japanese enjoyed extraterritoriality rights until 1937.26

The judicature in Taiwan and Korea, too, was exercised by the colonial governors as a part of their executive function. It was they, not the central government, who wrote the organic regulations of their respective law courts, through ritsurei in Taiwan and seirei in Korea. It was they, not the Minister of Justice or the Supreme Court of Japan, who had the ultimate control over the judicial affairs within the boundary of their respective colonies. Nevertheless, unlike the judicial system of the Kantōshū and the Nan’yō, the court systems of Taiwan and Korea were more elaborate, resembled more the court system of Japan, and contained measures of assurance for judicial independence. In both colonies, for example, a judge was protected from arbitrary dismissal by the colonial governor unless he was convicted of a crime or disciplined by a board of judges comprised of his own peers preselected by the governor-general.

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