Internet slander and slander incidents are frequent, Japan passed the amendment to the "Criminal Law" to increase the criminal responsibility for the crime of insult

Today (13) the Japanese Senate passed the amendment to the "Criminal Law". The direction of this amendment includes:

1. Raise the penalties for insulting crimes and severely punish insulting crimes.
2. Create a "custodial sentence".

Before the passage of this amendment, the maximum penalty for insulting crimes could be limited to "criminal materials" with detention days of no more than 30 days or less than 10,000 yen. This amendment will increase the punishment for insulting crimes to a maximum of one year under "penalty and imprisonment" or a "fine" under 300,000 yen, and the statute of limitations for public prosecution will be extended from one year to three years. much evidence. Otherwise, in the case of slander and slander on the Internet, it takes a lot of time to ask the operating company of the social networking site to provide the information of the anonymous post.

However, this revision of the law has also raised questions from the outside world. Will raising the punishment for insulting crimes affect freedom of speech? In the future, if criticizing politicians or civil servants, etc., even if there are legitimate reasons, will they be prosecuted for "insulting"? In this regard, this revision of the law also stipulates that three years after the new system is launched, it must be thoroughly verified whether the space for freedom of speech has shrunk after the crime of insult is severely punished.

Kimura Hana's death gave birth to this revision

Netizens who have been following this site for a long time may have the impression that this revision of the law actually has a lot to do with Kimura Flower.

In the old article " The death of Kimura Hana caused by cyber defamation, the first civil damages lawsuit was awarded NT$330,000 ", it was mentioned that a case like Kimura Hana's death due to cyber defamation can go through civil and criminal proceedings. However, if the bereaved family wants to file a civil lawsuit, they must "continue to publish the document after the death of the person involved" before the bereaved family can sue the perpetrator.

If it is a criminal lawsuit, taking Kimura Hua’s situation as an example, Kimura Hua mainly receives black letters from netizens, rather than putting forward facts to frame her in public on the Internet, so there is no way to use her reputation with heavier penalties. The crime of damage is dealt with. In this case, you can only sue for the crime of insult. Although the crime of insult is only required to have evidence that the defendant has maliciously slandered the client on the Internet, the crime of insult was originally the lightest punishment among the statutory sentences. Under the criminal record, is a human life only worth "detained for less than 30 days or a fine of less than 10,000 yuan"?

Therefore, after the Kimura Hana incident, there were voices within the civil society and the Ministry of Justice, who believed that the penalty for hurting others by anonymity on the Internet should be strengthened. Kimura's mother, Kimura Kyoko, also initiated an online petition on change.org, hoping to raise the upper limit of the fine for insults. After accumulating the target number of petitioners, she will submit it to the Minister of Justice and the Ministry of Justice.

This revision of the law is aimed at the crime of insult, so no matter whether the party involved died or not, as long as there is a situation of slander and slander on the Internet, this can be used to deal with it. It is hoped that the incidence of slander and slander can be reduced through severe punishment.

"Sentence of Punishment" and "Sentence of Imprisonment" are combined into "Sentence of Imprisonment"

In addition, another highlight of this amendment to the Criminal Law is the combination of "penalty sentence" and "imprisonment sentence" into "custodial sentence". However, this will not be officially implemented until three years later.

Originally, the biggest difference between "penalty" and "imprisonment" is whether there is an obligation to work (criminal work). After this amendment combines the two into "custodial sentences", in addition to labor work, appropriate educational courses or skills training can be planned according to the conditions of individual inmates during the serving period, hoping to reduce the recidivism rate of rehabilitated persons. This is the first time that the types of penalties have been changed since the Criminal Code was enacted in Japan 115 years ago.

In Taiwan, on World Human Rights Day last year (2021/12/10), the Supreme Court's Interpretation No. 812 declared that "compulsory work" while inmates are serving their sentences is unconstitutional.