“Hostage Justice”: Swiss woman acquitted of a crime, but detained for eight months anyway during prosecution’s appeal
Here’s another oddity of the Japanese judiciary–“hostage justice”. The prosecution is so strong in this country that, in the extremely rare case (less than one percent of all cases that go to trial) they lose a criminal case judgment (and the accused goes free), they can appeal. But, as you can see in the article below, the rights of the accused differ by nationality. If you are a Non-Japanese, and even if you are judged innocent by a lower court, you are still incarcerated for however many months it takes for the higher court to deliver a verdict (in this case, innocent again). Because, you see, foreigners aren’t allowed bail in Japan. Unlike Japanese. When Japanese appeal guilty verdicts, they are not detained (see Horie Takafumi and Suzuki Muneo; the latter, now convicted of corruption twice over, is still on the streets, even re-elected to the Diet!).