Does Japan use jury trials?
Limited use / mixed courts
Lay judges participate in criminal trials for certain severe crimes alongside professional judges.
Japan is one of 12 countries classified “Limited use / mixed courts” for jury trials — 44% of the 27 with data.
Source
- Taken from
- Wikipedia: Jury trial
- Last checked
- 17 September 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 are available for specific criminal cases but are not the default for all proceedings.
- Taiwan
- Limited use / mixed courts Citizen judges participate alongside professional judges in certain felony cases under the Citizen Judges Act.
- Hong Kong
- Jury trials used Jury trials are a regular part of the criminal and some civil justice system, though subject to national security exceptions.
- Malaysia
- Not used Jury trials were abolished nationwide in 1995.
- Singapore
- Not used The jury system was fully abolished in 1969.
- India
- Not used Jury trials were abolished in criminal law in 1973, with only a specific civil exception for Parsi divorce cases.
Other laws in Japan
- Death Penalty
- Retained / in use
- Gun Laws
- Highly restrictive / 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.