Stop training judicial apprentices in SDF: JCP

On the recent revelation that judicial apprentices are sent to the Self-Defense Forces as part of their professional training, the Japanese Communist Party's Hashimoto Atsushi in the House of Councilors Judicial Affairs Committee meeting on March 27 demanded that such training sessions be abolished because they are against the idea of legal training.

The Legal Training and Research Institute of the Supreme Court sends its students into the SDF bootcamp to have them learn to respect the "Hinomaru" flag and "Kimigayo" song. Hashimoto said that it is inappropriate to educate judicial trainees of attorneys, judges, or public prosecutors in the SDF.

Hashimoto cited the 1973 Sapporo District Court ruling that the SDF are unconstitutional and the fact that even the Supreme Court has never ruled that they are constitutional. The training institute of the Supreme Court must be fair, strict, and politically neutral, he added.

Kanetsuki Seiji, Personnel Affairs Bureau director of the Supreme Court, promised to look at how students are being trained and to reconsider the appropriateness of places where judicial apprentices are being trained. (end)