crime

Lawmaker's secretary admits to bribing election campaigners

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The penalty for unlawful payments to campaign staff is a jail term of up to three years, with or without labor, or a maximum fine of 500,000 yen.

What politician ever gets jail time in Japan?

16 ( +16 / -0 )

A similar thing just happened yesterday in China.

The police forcibly brought the democratic leader out of the parlament to have a vote for the pro-comunist leader.

Abe is getting rid of the opposition, nevertheless.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Lawmaker's secretary admits to bribing election campaigners

No he did not "bribe" anyone! He paid them more than he was supposed to, according to the campaign laws, which are very specific as to how much anyone can pay people to assist with their campaigns.

Even the article states clearly;

The penalty for unlawful payments to campaign staff is a jail term of up to three years, with or without labor, or a maximum fine of 500,000 yen.

Bribing them would be something totally different, and in this case it's just a "headline" to get people's attention here!

Change the title!

1 ( +4 / -3 )

What politician ever gets jail time in Japan?

Suzuki Muneo

From Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muneo_Suzuki

His secretary Akira Miyano was convicted of bribery in 2003,[4] and Muneo was convicted of taking the bribes, failure to declare political donations, and perjury and sentenced to two years in prison and fined ¥11 million in November 2004.........Suzuki was paroled on 6 December 2011 after serving one year of prison in Tochigi Prefecture.[6]

5 ( +5 / -0 )

I'm with Yubaru. This is not a "bribe". A bribe is something paid to someone in a position of authority for special treatment. This money was paid to a political supporter for campaign work, something which should arguably be legal anyway. Legalizing it would remove the pretense that such payments are never made.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

bribery means lay low for a year and get your old job back.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

What politician ever gets jail time in Japan?

Kishiro Nakamura https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2003/01/17/national/nakamura-to-trade-diet-seat-for-jail-cell/#.XsSQWsBUt1s

Toshio Yamaguchi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshio_Yamaguchi

Tatsuo Tomobe https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2001/12/28/national/momoo-tomobe-gets-eight-years-for-fraud-scheme/#.XsSUd8BUt1s

Takanori Sakai https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2005/09/13/issues/scales-of-justice/#.XsSV28BUt1s

1 ( +1 / -0 )

garymalmgren,

You must have searched really hard to pull that one out of the hat.

By and large Japanese politicians are untouchable.

Muneo was sooooo dirty that even Japan's prosecutors couldn't ignore him plus he had upset more than a few higher ups in the LDP hierarchy........

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Perfect, it's solved : the staff takes all responsibility, the boss is cleared. Like for Ozawa, the judge will say something "There is a 0, 00001% chance the politician was not aware of the fraud, so in absence of evidence, we declare him as innocent as a baby lamb."

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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