Court interpreters in Japan: no certification, and what that means for your defence

In many countries, a court interpreter is a certified professional who has passed a state examination and carries a licence. Readers who arrive in the Japanese criminal process carrying that assumption tend to stumble in an unexpected place: Japan has no certification system for court interpreters, and interpreting in a single case does not run through a single channel.

This is not an argument that the system is defective. It is an observation that, because the system is built this way, there is a corresponding way to conduct a defence. If you know what is guaranteed and what is not, there are steps you can take.

What follows sets out the structure of interpreting in Japanese criminal procedure in three layers, then turns to what a suspect, a defendant and their family can actually do. The final sections explain how an interpreting problem travels forward into decisions about your right to remain in Japan.

Layer one: the right to interpretation is guaranteed

The right to have an interpreter is guaranteed by both statute and treaty in Japan.

Article 175 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that where a person who is not conversant with the national language is to make a statement, an interpreter must interpret. Article 178 of the same Code provides that characters or symbols that are not in the national language may be translated. Underlying both is Article 74 of the Court Act, which provides that the Japanese language is used in the courts.

On the treaty side, Article 14(3)(a) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the right to be informed promptly, in a language which the person understands, of the nature and cause of the charge. Article 14(3)(f) guarantees the right to the free assistance of an interpreter where the person cannot understand or speak the language used in court. Japan is a party to that Covenant.

Layer two: quality depends on the individual, not on a credential

What is guaranteed is that interpretation will be provided, not that the interpreter holds any particular qualification.

There is no national licence for court interpreters in Japan. Courts across the country maintain lists of interpreter candidates and appoint from those lists case by case. According to the Supreme Court of Japan’s public information booklet on court interpreting, the candidate lists contained 3,823 people across 62 languages as of April 2017 (Heisei 29).

The same source reports that 3,851 defendants concluded proceedings requiring an interpreter in 2023 (Reiwa 5). By language, Vietnamese accounted for 40.4 per cent, Chinese for 16.1 per cent and Thai for 7.3 per cent, while English accounted for 3.8 per cent. For English speakers this figure carries a specific lesson. English is not among the highest-volume languages in Japanese criminal courts, so the assumption that English will always be handled smoothly is not safe. And for a person whose first language is not English but who speaks English as a second or third language, the threshold question of which language interpretation should be provided in can itself become a live issue.

Layer three: interpreting does not run through one channel

In the same case, the interpreter used by the investigating authorities, the interpreter engaged by your defence lawyer, and the interpreter appointed by the court are three different people.

The interpreter present at police or prosecutor questioning is arranged by the investigating side. The interpreter who accompanies your lawyer to a detention-centre visit is arranged by the defence. The trial interpreter is appointed by the court. In practice, the only person positioned to check whether these channels are using consistent terminology is your defence lawyer.

The written statement, or kyōjutsu chōsho, is where this structure bites hardest. Statements taken during questioning become Japanese text through the investigating side’s interpreter. The reading-back procedure under Article 198(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which requires that the statement be read to you or shown to you and which allows you to request additions, deletions or changes, is also delivered through that same interpreter. If a discrepancy is not raised at that moment, nothing about it enters the record.

What you can actually do

Once the structure is clear, the countermeasures become concrete.

• At the reading-back stage, identify the specific passage that is wrong and say so. Article 198(4) allows a request for additions, deletions or changes, and a request that is made is noted in the record.
• Remember that signing and sealing a written statement is something you are asked to do, not something you are obliged to do. You may decline.
• For certain serious offences, Article 301-2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure requires audio and video recording of questioning, which means the interpreting exchange is also preserved. Ask your lawyer whether your case falls within that category.
• Confirm numbers, dates, amounts and counts in writing rather than orally. These are the elements most prone to drift in interpretation.
• Tell your lawyer early about your own vocabulary and habits of expression, including regional usage.
• If something sounds wrong at trial, tell your lawyer immediately so that the accuracy of the interpretation can be addressed while the hearing is still running.

How the criminal outcome reaches your residence status

Interpreting accuracy connects, at the end of the chain, to whether you may stay in Japan.

Start with the statistics. According to the 2025 (Reiwa 7) edition of the White Paper on Crime, the prosecution rate for cases involving so-called visiting foreign nationals was 44.28 per cent in 2024 (Reiwa 6), against 40.38 per cent overall. The denominator is cases disposed of excluding negligent driving causing death or injury and road traffic violations. Note that the category of visiting foreign nationals excludes permanent residents, spouses of permanent residents, special permanent residents, persons connected with the United States forces in Japan, and persons whose residence status is unknown. The starting point, in other words, is that being a foreign national is not a procedural advantage.

On deportation, Article 24(4)(ri) of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act covers a person sentenced to imprisonment (kōkinkei) for life or for a term exceeding one year. There is a proviso: a sentence that is wholly suspended is excluded, and where only part of the sentence is suspended, the case is excluded if the portion to be actually served is one year or less. By contrast, Article 24(4)(chi) covers a person who has received a guilty judgment for a drug offence, and that provision applies even where the penalty is a fine, even where the sentence is suspended, and even where punishment is waived. The category of residence status makes no difference there.

The landing-denial side matters just as much. Article 5(1)(iv) covers a person sentenced to imprisonment (kōkinkei) for one year or more, while Article 5(1)(v) deals with drug-related grounds. Article 5(1)(v) contains no time limit at all, so the denial of landing is open-ended, and it is satisfied by a fine, and by a conviction under foreign law. Re-entry in that situation depends on special permission to land under Article 12(1). A person who has completed a criminal sentence may therefore still find that returning to Japan is a separate and much harder question.

Common misunderstandings

• That English speakers face no interpreting risk. The absence of a certification system applies to every language.
• That you cannot ask for a different interpreter. At trial, a request to replace an interpreter can be considered.
• That a suspended sentence has no immigration consequence. For drug offences, Article 24(4)(chi) applies regardless of suspension.
• That once the sentence is over, the immigration issue is over. Landing denial is assessed separately from the execution of the sentence.
• That you can correct an interpreting error later at trial. Overturning a signed statement requires a proportionately strong explanation.

How our office works

At Funado International Law Office, attorney Daisuke Matsumura attends detention visits and meetings personally. We establish which language and which interpreter produced each written statement in the investigation stage, identify passages where a discrepancy is likely, and build the trial approach around those points.

On interpreting resources, our office has a dedicated Chinese-language interpreter for foreign national cases on staff; for other languages, including English, we arrange an interpreter according to the requirements of the individual case.

As a matter of defence policy, we regard a suspended sentence as still insufficient, and we treat a decision not to prosecute as the primary objective. Once a criminal disposition is fixed, the range of options remaining on the immigration side narrows considerably. We design the criminal case and the immigration procedure as a single structure, and we examine whether intent or negligence can be contested even in relation to whether a ground for deportation applies at all. The first consultation is free of charge, and you may also contact us via WeChat ID matsumura1119.

By way of conclusion

Knowing the limits of a system is not the same as being pessimistic about it. Once you can see which parts are not guaranteed, those parts can be covered by human effort, attention and timing. This article is a general explanation; for your own situation, please speak with a lawyer directly.

Author

Daisuke Matsumura, Attorney at Law
Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association (registration number: 59077, admitted 2019)
Funado International Law Office (Fuse Building Main Wing 3F, 3-4-10 Takada, Toshima-ku, Tokyo)
Principal focus on criminal defence and immigration procedure for foreign nationals, with a client base centred on Chinese nationals. Results include an acquittal in a Stimulants Control Act case involving possession for the purpose of profit, a decision not to prosecute in an organised fraud case, and special permission to stay in cases regarded as difficult.

Funado International Law Office
Website: https://matsumura-lawoffice.jp/
WeChat ID: matsumura1119

Japanese version of this article: https://matsumura-lawoffice.jp/blog/detail/2026099298/