1) Japan launched a project to simplify legal language used in court to make it more understandable for lay judges. 2) A survey found that legal terms considered important by lawyers were often not known by laypeople. It classified terms into categories based on importance and familiarity. 3) The project reworded legal terms like "suppression of rebellion" to "suppression of resistance" to better convey their meaning to laypeople. 4) Results included reports defining simplified definitions of legal terms for both lay judges and legal experts.

1. Japan’s Project
to Simplify Courtroom Language
Mami Hiraike Okawara
Plenary Session: Clarity around the World, 14 October 2010

2. Overview
1. Lay Judge (saiban-in) System
2. Plain Language Project
3. Survey Results
4. Effects on Legal and Lay Worlds

3. Lay Judge (saiban-in) System
1. Jury System (1928~1943?)
2. Lay Judge System (2009~)
(1) A term of One Case
(2) 3 Professional Judges + 6 Lay Judges
(3) Guity/Not Guilty + Penalties
(4) Heinous Cases
(5) No Options of Lay Judge Trials for Defendants

4. Plain Language Project
1. 28 May 2004
New Law concerning Criminal Trials with Lay Judges
2. August of 2004
Japan Federation of Bar Associations
Lay-Judge Preparatory Headquarters
Project to Simplify Courtroom Language
Project Members
5 Non-Legal Experts
8 Legal Experts

5. Survey Results
1. Survey
Lay Perception on of Legalese
2. Rewording Work
‘Suppression of Rebellion’ v. ‘Suppression of Resistance’
3. Results

6. Lay Perception on Legalese
1. 3 Features to be Identified
(1) Type of Legal Terms Lay Felt They Knew
(2) How Lay People Actually Understood Terms
They Had Indicated They Knew
(3) Type of Vocabulary Lay Used
When Explaining ‘Known Words’
2. Selection of 50 Legal Terms

7. Lay Perception on Legalese
3. Cognitive Interview (46 lay respondents)
Question (1)
Have you heard (this word)?
Yes → Question (2) No → End of Question
Question (2)
How well do you know (this word)?
Very well Well Neither well nor no
Not well Not at all

8. Lay Perception on Legalese
4. Degrees of Importance of 50 Words (29 Lawyers)
Question (3)
How important do you think of (this word) in Courtroom?
Very Important
Important
Neither Important nor Unimportant
Unimportant
Very Unimportant

9. Lay Perception on Legalese
Findings
(1) Strong Correlation
between Lawyers’ Important-Word Feelings
and Lays’ Heard-of-Feelings
(2) Weak Correlation
between Lawyers’ Important-Word Feelings
and Lays’ Already-Known Feelings

10. Lay Perception on Legalese
Classification of 50 Words
(a) Important but Not Known
(b) Important and Well-Known
(c) Not Important but Well-Known
(d) Neither Important Nor Known

11. Rewording Work
‘Suppression of Rebellion’ (hankou no yokuatsu)
mandatory in charging facts in a robbery case
robbery ≠ theft
the defendant used force or imposed fear on the victim in
order to prevent resistance
the defendant ‘suppressed the victim’s rebellion and stole
32,000 yen from the victim’s bag….

12. Rewording Work
‘Suppression of Rebellion’
English:
justifiable grounds to suppress rebellious people
Japanese:
suppression=a more justifiable notion
rebellion= an anti-authority type of action
a policeman suppressed the defendant’s rebellious conduct?
or
the defendant suppressed the victim’s resistance?

13. Rewording Work
‘Suppression of Rebellion’ or ‘Suppression of Resistance’
Resistance=an attack consists of fighting back against the
people who have attacked one
Rebellion=an attack consists of fighting back against the
people who have attacked one
+
the defendant’s threat is strong enought that the
victim cannot fight it back

14. Results
1. 2005 Interim Report on 16 Legal Terms
2. 2008 Book on 61 Legal Terms for Lay
Book on 61 Legal Terms for Legal Experts
3. 2010 Electric Dictionary with 61 Legal Terms for Lay

15. Story v Fact
Opening Statement
‘a story read by a public prosecutor or a defense counsel at
the beginning of the examination of evidence’
Article 296 of the Code of Criminal Procedure
‘at the outset of the examination of evidence, a public
prosecutor shall make clear the facts to be proved by
evidence’
legal ‘fact’≠lay ‘fact’

16. Effects
1) Legal World
Improvement of Comprehensibility in Trials
2) Lay World
Interest in Legal Language and Legal World