Photo/Illutration Executions are carried out in the death chamber at right when correctional officers press buttons on the wall of an adjacent room at the Tokyo Detention House. (Pool)

OSAKA—The Osaka High Court on March 17 rejected a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by death-row inmates over the constitutionality of executing prisoners hours after they are notified they will die.

The case was sent back to the Osaka District Court, which had rejected the lawsuit in April 2024.

In Japan, condemned inmates are executed on the day they are notified that their death sentences will be carried out.

Two death-row inmates sued the government over this same-day process, saying it violates Article 31 of the Constitution.

Article 31 states: No person shall be deprived of life or liberty, nor shall any other criminal penalty be imposed, except according to procedure according to law.

The plaintiffs argued that condemned prisoners should not be obligated to accept an execution on the same day of the notification.

Last year, the district court ruled against the plaintiffs by referring to a 1961 Supreme Court decision that said: “A lawsuit alleging illegality in the method of execution is inadmissible because it is, in effect, a request to vacate a death sentence.”

However, the Osaka High Court said the district court’s application of the 1961 precedent was unreasonable.

The high court pointed out that the Supreme Court’s decision concerned a criminal trial in which the defense challenged the constitutionality of the execution method—hanging.

The high court said the present lawsuit is different because it concerns the timing of the notification of an execution.

“It is quite possible to carry out a death sentence lawfully even if notification is announced the day before,” the court said.

And allowing the plaintiffs’ appeal in the lawsuit would not mean a vacating of the death sentence itself, it said.

The high court explained that if the case is properly heard after the remand and the plaintiffs prevail, “it is expected that the process will be revised and the same-day notice will be exempted.”

However, the high court concluded that it “cannot immediately find that the process constitutes an illegal act.”

It also upheld the district court’s decision to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claim for state compensation.

Takeshi Kaneko, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said, “This is a message that the central government should squarely face the merits of the same-day notification.”

He said that in the first trial, the central government did not respond to requests for information that could help determine the unconstitutionality of same-day notification.

“The debate did not go deeper,” he said, “What is required of the central government is to clarify the reality of the death penalty.”

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