「取調べ可視化は、米国やイギリスなどの欧米をはじめ、オセアニアや香港、台湾、韓国でも行なわれている。先進国で導入していないのは日本ぐらいです。密室で捜査官の脅迫や暴行、自白誘導など冤罪事件は絶えず、大阪地裁で昨春に無罪判決が出た枚方談合事件でも、釈放された小堀隆恒元枚方市副市長が『検事から二度と枚方に住めないようにしてやる。家族も町を歩けないようにしてやる、と罵倒された。オムツをはかされて取調べを受けた』と明かしている。こんなヒドイ取調べは即刻やめさせるべきです」（法曹界関係者）
検察・警察はなぜ可視化を嫌うのか。元東京地検検事はこう言う。
「検察はこれまで、容疑者から早く供述を取る『割り屋』が重宝され、出世も早かった。だから強引な取調べをする検事が後を絶たなかった。もし可視化されれば、脅しスカシはできなくなる。今までの何倍も時間をかけて供述を得なくてはならない。手間も時間もかかるから嫌なのです」
東京地検特捜部は「法と証拠にのっとって調べている」なんて言っているが、実態はフン捕まえてギュウギュウ締め上げているだけ。
Japan Stalls as Leaders Are Jolted by Old Guard - NYTimes.com
It has turned into a public battle between the country’s brash new reformist leaders and one of the most powerful institutions of its entrenched postwar establishment: the Public Prosecutors Office.
“This scandal has put Japan’s democracy in danger,” said Nobuo Gohara, a former prosecutor who now teaches public policy at Meijo University. “This is the bureaucratic system striking back to protect itself from challengers, in this case elected leaders.”
Mr. Gohara and other critics do not so much defend Mr. Ozawa, a master of the machine-style politics of the Liberal Democrats, as criticize what they see as the selective justice meted out by the prosecutors, who come down hard on challengers to Japan’s postwar establishment while showing leniency to insiders.
Critics noted that prosecutors focused solely on Mr. Ozawa while declining to pursue Liberal Democratic lawmakers who were also named as taking money from the same company, Nishimatsu Construction.
Some political experts describe these repeated inquiries into Mr. Ozawa as signs that the prosecutors are acting as a sort of immune system for Japan’s establishment, springing into action against a politician who they fear is accumulating excessive power with his near-total control of the governing party’s purse strings.
The debate has focused unusual public scrutiny on Japan’s 2,600 public prosecutors, who are a force unlike any in the justice systems of the United States and other Western democracies. The Prosecutors Office has the right not only to choose whom to investigate and when, but to arrest and detain suspects for weeks before filing charges, in effect giving them powers of the police, attorneys general and even judges all rolled into one.
Indeed, media experts say the prosecutors enjoy close ties with the major news media outlets, which has led to generally positive coverage of the investigation into Mr. Ozawa.
News reports have followed a predictable pattern of stories based on leaks from prosecutors with emerging details of the $4 million that prosecutors believe he tried to hide by investing it in land in Tokyo. Just as predictably, this negative coverage has turned public opinion against Mr. Ozawa, with most people saying he has not adequately explained where the money came from.
Outraged, the Democrats have vowed to strike back by organizing a team of lawmakers to investigate the prosecutors’ use of leaks to sway coverage.
“This scandal shows how much the new administration is making waves,” said Mr. Gohara, the former prosecutor, “but also how the old system will fight back.”
