KuroTokage comments

Forgive us for asking everyone to do their part.

Interpreting rules that suit only you seems entitled. Then perhaps you should move into politics after law.

There is no room for interpretation of the law. A law that requires you to separate different parts of a plastic bottle just does not exist. It is merely a request which you can follow or not. If you feel better by following the request then there is nothing wrong with it and I respect that. But it is wrong to say that you must seperate the parts prior to recycling as that would suggest that it would be required by a law and thus violating such a law would have legal consequences. Since this is not the case, it is misleading at best to make people believe it was.

Good gracious KuroTokage, thank the gods you’re not my solicitor here in Japan.

Then I suggest that you consult your current solicitor and I will guarantee you that he or she will confirm that all of my legal explanations I have made in this forum to date are correct. You might not agree with all of it but it still is correct from a legal point of view. Instead you should be thankful that you are getting free legal advice.

Well police definitely didn’t just pick him up to take him out for more drinks? This story, like other criminal stories you’ve recently posted with your legal commentary reads “Police…, arrested… and, violation of law”.

Well, you already know of the inflationary use of the word "arrest", especially in English articles. Even in the case where a person has actually violated against a law, such an "arrest" constitutes solely the identification of the perpetrator.

In this case however, it is solely a civil matter. The facility owner can ask police with the identification (as to which the perpetrator needs to cooperate) and then he can take legal action against him.

Or you can just mix them in with normal garbage. If you can't see them there's no problem, no one checks.

Yes, actually more people do just that than you would imagine. Including me.

For those who don’t live in Japan, to dispose of pet bottles they must be fully rinsed out, and labels removed and discarded separately. 

I don't like the wording "must". Cause there is no obligation for doing that - and likewise no punishment if you don't separate them.

First of all it is irrelevant what was in the box. The garbage was dropped in the facility’s multi-story parking garage, according to the above article. Now this is a private property and 廃棄物の処理及び清掃に関する法律　（or 廃棄物処理法 for short）will not apply here. The owner of the facility will need to do one of the following.

1) Ask the person to collect the garbage

2) Remove the garbage, initially on his own cost and later invoice the perpetrator

3) If the person refuses to collect the items and also refuses to pay for the removal, the facility owner can as a civil court to collect such costs.

No person will be arrested here since this is a civil matter.

First of all, he was definitely not "arrested". In Japan, less than 3% of all persons charged with a crime are actually "arrested" - they must pose a threat to others or there must be sufficient evidence that they disappear.

Second, the DA will surely not press charges for "computer fraud". He will probably try to press charges for 横領罪(embezzlement) - but even then the court needs to prove that he knowingly withheld that money.

If he is not the stupidest person and has a somewhat decent lawyer, he will get out of it scot-free.

There are no mask requirements in Japan. The implementation would be impossible from a legal perspective.

Wearing a mask has always been optional. And since there has never been a legal requirement to wear a mask, it is misleading to talk about relaxing a requirement that never existed.

Who gets offended by a sign that just reads a place's name? That's more than childish, it's pathetic.

And now I'll have another glass of Russian Vodka. За здоровье!

Well, if he stay silent, there is zero chance of them able to charge him with anything without proof. As no one was injured, the best they can do is give him fine for property damage.

Absolutely correct. It is refreshing to see some people with understanding of the law.

Without further evidence -I won't go into details of the different sort of evidence here cause I did so in another explanation-the prosecution will bear the onus of proving his intention to harm or kill a person. Regarding the property damage, as it is a 親告罪 it is only prosecuted by request of the person whose property was damaged, e.g. the condo owner or the city. But I can not see Art 261 being used here as there must be an intention for the damage - if he dropped the ball by accident (which he should claim if he is clever), then the lack of intention will prevent prosecution under Art 261 as well. He still might be liable under civil law but maybe he has an insurance to cover the costs.

It's these morons that gives health and safety license to crop every pleasure. Already in many apartments and hotels there are windows that cannot open or have a thin slit that opens. Most balconies and top of buildings (church etc) are now netted or glassed, once it was open and we could see a beautiful view

Seems like you are going to the wrong places.

I remember 5-6 years ago, I was staying at a hotel very near Kannai station in Yokohama after a night of drinking with my working colleagues. The next morning I wanted to smoke a cigarette and while looking for a smoking space, I ended up somewhere on the 18th or 19th floor where there was a rather large window, conveniently located just 2ft above the floor which opened up pretty wide. I stepped out onto the roof of the building and enjoyed a coffee and a cigarette while watching the sun rise over that part of the city - no fences or nets in sight.

A lot of information in this article seems not to fit.

They can be either Japanese or American citizens since Japan does not allow dual citizenship.

While it is not punishable per se to hold dual citizenship, you can be asked by the Ministry of Justice to renounce your other country's citizenship or you might be stripped off your Japanese citizenship in the most severe cases. Likewise, your supposed to renounce your Japanese citizenship in the case you take up another county's citizenship by submitting a 国籍喪失届け. Not doing so however carries no penalty.

If you apply for a J passport (or renew yours), you are being asked if you hold the citizenship of another country. Giving false information here is punishable by 5 years in prison or up to a 3M Yen fine. (see 旅券法第23条)

You won't be issued a new passport if you are also holding the citizenship of another countries.

Japan is one of less than 20 countries in the world that does not extradite its own citizens. The others are Austria, Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Morocco, Norway, PRC, Portugal, Taiwan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Syria and Vietnam) (see 逃亡犯罪人引渡法2条 for Japan or look up the laws up the respective country)

Filtering the water will only leave tritium, which is an radioactive isotope of hydrogen. And that’s not harmful in small quantities.  A million metric tons released of that already diluted water being released into the sea is a really tiny amount.

Who funds this group?

I hope it's not my taxes going towards it.

at an onsen in Tōkyō, the woman at the front desk asked me "men's or women's?". I laughed and said "men's of course, don't worry", she just said "no... no problem, whichever". 

Next time choose wisely.

AddfwynToday  04:49 pm JST

Guitly on 17 counts, at least one being rape, and the sentencing is only 17 years? That is after the escape charges as well. I somehow still managed to be surprised by how light the punishment here can be for rape.

Escape charges can only apply for people who are sentenced to confinement by a court of justice. They do not apply to people who are in custody.

Even in the case the person would have escaped from prison, one needs to distinguish between 単純逃走罪and 加重逃走罪, the first one carries a maximal penalty of one year (in reality it is in the range of 2-3 months).

RodneyToday  09:24 am JST

I feel sorry for those caught. They will be handcuffed to a hard metal chair for 10 hours a day, with no food, water or toilet breaks, forced to watch videos crackheads, heroin overdoses, meth heads with no teeth.

I am not saying that such countries don't exist, but that is not the case in Japan. First and second time offenders of possesion (consumption is not illegal under Japanese law) are regularly handed monetary fines in the range of 6-15万円. I can not think of many cases where repeat offenders were given a suspended sentence of a few months.

And for those of you who are afraid to loose power. The frequency for the TEPCO region is pretty stable at the moment. It would have to fall below 49 Hz for the automatic load shedding to get triggered.

First of all, I'm not cooperating with their request.

conserve energy by turning off lights when not needed

Power consumption by LEDs or CFLs are negligible.

If you really want to preserve energy, turn off the power of all those needless vending machines on every corner, turn off the neon signs of shops and other establishments and most important turn off the heating inside of shopping malls and department stores. Those are set to too high temperatures anyways.

But all that wouldn't have been necessary, if all those perfectly fine nuclear power plants weren't taken off the grid after 2011.

Can we sing?

Absolutely.

Can we laugh or cry? How about squeal?

Yep.

Can they raise their eyebrows?

Why not?

The government can not relax number limits, as it can not implement such in the first place.

Those so called "rules" are nothing more than requests and everyone is free to ignore them.

You can invite as many people as you wish to any public place or onto land that you own or have rented for the duration of such an event.

I was at the 波物語 last year with literally thousands of people, 80-90% not wearing a mask. Usually I'm not a big fan of those festivals but since it was in the middle of a "pandemic", I had no other choice but to go.

Countries like Norway at the top,but also Germany Denmark and Sweden showed that their prison correctional system not only benefits for rehabilitation of the convicts but also proves high human rights standard qualities. These are the ones I admire,Japan still has the medieval conception of prison=punishment which instead should be,prison+reheducation= rehabilitation.

Maybe that's a reason why those countries attract so many criminals from across the globe and that those countries have one of the highest tax rates in the world.

I don't want to aliment criminals with my tax money - Prison should be a form of punishment.

The Taylors were extradited from the U.S. in February 2021,

Well, that's the problem if you're a citizen of a common-law country. Japan (and I guess most countries with legal systems based on Roman law) does not extradite their citizens.

Nothing to worry about. RPVs and the containment building itself are pretty sturdy.

In the unlikely event that it breaks, just duck and cover.

Legally I believe you must have a family member cremated in Japan which costs 10,000 yen in Osaka and 40,000 yen in Tokyo.

Legally a dead body must be either buried or cremated (墓地、埋葬等に関する法律)

While a ceremony will cost anywhere around 150万-250万円, the absolute cheapest option would be to use a public crematory where the cost ranges from a few thousand Yen to around 50,000 Yen. Privately run crematories would be slightly more expensive but not by that much.

It is a widespread misconception, that relatives need to pay for funerals. According to the law this is not regulated anywhere. In most cases the heir will pay for the funeral but he is not required to do so by law.

Probably some other costs involved too,

Yes, since under Japanese law, a person can only be cremated after at least 24h have passed since their dead,

the body must be stored, prepared and transported to the crematory and you probably need a coffin or urn as well. I will refer to those as 安置所の費用 and 棺代.

but no one is legally required to have a funeral.

Legally speaking that's correct.

I imagine some families feel pressure from other family members to have a funeral despite the high cost.

That happens quite often actually. And since there are no laws that regulate who needs to cover the costs, it is highly advisable for the testator to include this in his last will.

answering foreign military recruitment could run afoul of Japanese law against preparing or plotting to wage war privately on a foreign country.

Legally speaking, I don't see any problems here. The case would be different if Japan was at war with Ukraine and a Japanese national who is a member of the JSDF would start fighting for the other side as this would be a violation of 自衛隊法第122条 (敵前逃亡/Desertation)

However, I don't think that the current JSDF members are that well trained in combat (compared to their pre '45 counterparts) so it would be a wise decision not to go.

In the 2020 world press freedom index Korea was at 42 which was better than the US and Japan was significantly lower at 67.

That doesn't mean anything. This index is published by a leftwing organization and therefore the ranking just shows how woke and biased the press in a country is. Fact is, in Japan there is not a single website that is being censored, there is not a single book on index, there is not a single thing that you're not allowed to talk about. Test me, I'll prove it to you.

Also saying you weren't censored in Yahoo Japan is not saying much since it's where many of the extreme right in Japan post.

Right. But I prefer to call my political views as 保守派

They don’t teach history in Japan anymore. That’s what i was referring to when i said there’s little real media freedom in Japan

As someone who has attended school and university (and a pretty good one) in Japan, I will tell you that history is being taught in school. Just without the lies. And Japan is the only country in the world with an absolute right to freedom of speech - unlike countries as China, Europe, etc where people might even face criminal charges to expressing their freedom. If you don't like media outlets in this country, create your own.

And Japanese media doesn't censor comments (I have more than 60k comments on Yahoo Japan, none of them deleted).

I thought in Japan there is a limit or a cap on life insurance and you will have to provide a reason for high coverage!???

There is no (and can't be) any law regulating such things. You enter into a contract with the insurance company and conditions of such a contract are entirely up to you and the company.

It might look suspicious if you are 80+ years old and opt for a multi million dollar life insurance and the insurance company might refuse you.

Btw, you can also buy policies from various insurance companies at the same time, or even from the same company. So there is virtually no limit as to how much coverage you can have.

Again, JT has truncated my text. I was quoting from 刑事訴訟法, hence the 同法 was meant to refer to that.

Police are currently questioning him on a voluntary basis.

Questioning by police is always done on a voluntary basis. Even in court you have to right to remain silent if you wish to do so. This is guaranteed by the constitution.

While the police can only ask for you to appear at a police station, a court can order you to appear.

Non compliance with the latter can and will lead to arrest and being brought to court. Legally this is called 勾引（同法58条2号）

Unusual high level of insurance. 

I don't think so.

Japan has around 5 million CCTV cameras for a population of over 125 million.

And probably no one has one in their bathroom.

The majority of CCTV cameras don't hold the data for longer than 1 - 3 months,

I assume you are talking about 街頭防犯カメラ which is installed and operated by local municipalities.

Most of them require the footage to be deleted/overwritten within a month.

You can take out life insurance on someone without having to inform them.

Legally speaking that is not possible. If the contractor and the insured person differs, a written form of consent is required. Other than that, persons that can be insured are generally limited to your spouse and relatives with in 2nd degree (2親等以内の血族)