Does Japan use jury trials?
Limited use / mixed courts
Japan introduced a lay judge system for serious crimes, but not general jury trials.
Japan is one of 16 countries classified “Limited use / mixed courts” for jury trials — 55% of the 29 with data.
Source
- Taken from
- Wikipedia: Jury trial
- Last checked
- 7 July 2026
- How it was classified
- Classified by a language model from the source text, then checked against hand-verified reference countries.
Nearby countries
- South Korea
- Limited use / mixed courts Citizen participation trials use juries only when defendant requests it, with court discretion to exclude cases.
- Taiwan
- Jury trials used Citizen judge system implemented in 2023, with random selection of citizens participating in felony trials.
- Hong Kong
- Jury trials used Hong Kong maintains jury trials for criminal cases in the High Court, but not in the District Court.
- Malaysia
- Not used Malaysia abolished jury trials in 1995 due to concerns about impartiality.
- Russia
- Limited use / mixed courts Jury trials are limited to serious crimes in Russia, with only about 600 per year out of 1 million trials.
- Singapore
- Not used Singapore abolished jury trials in 1969, distrust of the system due to multicultural concerns.
Other laws in Japan
- Death Penalty
- Retained / in use
- Gun Laws
- Highly restrictive / banned
- School Corporal Punishment
- Banned
- Military Conscription
- No conscription
A visual reference compiled from Wikipedia’s law-by-country articles, not legal advice. Laws change and summaries simplify — check a primary source before relying on anything here.