Interpreter Equivalence and Quasi-Presence of Counsel in Japanese Police Interrogations

Conclusion: defending a foreign national in Japan starts by making interpretation equivalence an issue

In Japan, the outcome of a criminal case against a foreign national is very often decided during the investigation stage, by a document called a written statement (供述調書). That statement is not something the suspect wrote. What the suspect said in his or her own language was turned into Japanese by an interpreter arranged by the investigators, edited by the interrogating officer into the formal style of a statement, read back orally in the suspect's language by the interpreter, and then signed and sealed by the suspect. It is a document produced through several layers of conversion.

Did the meaning shift somewhere between what the suspect actually said and what the statement records? That is the problem of equivalence. In every case involving a foreign national, our office consistently argues three things. First, the way interpretation is organised on the investigators' side gives no structural guarantee of equivalence. Second, because the right to counsel must be protected in substance and not merely in form, defence counsel should secure an interpreter of their own. Third, since Japanese investigators still do not allow defence counsel to be present during interrogation, counsel should set up what we call a quasi-presence arrangement and build into it a mechanism for checking equivalence. The grounds and the practical steps are set out below.

1 What equivalence means: an interpreter cannot produce the same words

1-1 Formal accuracy versus semantic equivalence

Research on court interpreting distinguishes two kinds of accuracy: formal accuracy, meaning faithfulness to the words, and semantic equivalence, meaning conveying the whole of the meaning. Mohri Masako, in her paper on the possibility of maintaining linguistic equivalence in legal interpreting through an attempt to translate an indictment into English (毛利雅子「司法通訳における言語等価性維持の可能性：起訴状英語訳の試み」日本大学大学院総合社会情報研究科紀要 vol. 7, p. 391, 2006), argues that if the interpreter's mission is to convey the full meaning, then the interpreter must maintain semantic equivalence even where that requires some supplementation, addition or editing.

This is the first dilemma. A word-for-word rendering imports the structure of Japanese legal language wholesale: very long sentences, and peculiar expressions such as midari ni (without lawful reason) or seito na riyu ga nai noni (without just cause). A suspect who only hears the translation cannot follow it. A rendering that can be understood, on the other hand, is a sentence that has passed through the interpreter's own interpretation and editing. Whichever is chosen, there is always a gap between the original statement and the Japanese in the written record. That gap is the essence of the equivalence problem.

1-2 Legal terms have no equivalents

The problem is sharpest at the level of vocabulary. The Mohri paper cited above gives the example of midari ni in the Stimulants Control Act (覚醒剤取締法). In a dictionary it means recklessly or without restraint, but as a legal term it means without a statutory ground of exemption, and this double meaning makes it hard to translate. Likewise, translating yunyu simply as import makes the act sound lawful; to convey illegality one has to use smuggle. In other words, the choice of a single word can determine whether the suspect understands that his or her conduct meets the elements of an offence.

Mizuno Kahoru, in her paper on the accuracy of legal interpreting in cases involving foreign nationals (水野かほる「外国人事件における司法通訳の正確性：要通訳事件の事例からの考察」言語政策 vol. 4, 2008), gives the example of the Urdu word dakka, which covers both robbery and extortion, so that a mistranslation would have serious consequences.

The same thing happens in every language. Concepts such as conspiracy (共謀), intent (故意), dolus eventualis or conditional intent (未必の故意), possession (占有), intent to unlawfully appropriate (不法領得の意思) and just cause (正当な理由) have no one-to-one legal counterpart in most languages. In the interrogation room the interpreter has no choice but to paraphrase in everyday words, and that paraphrase shapes the suspect's understanding and answer. The suspect is answering the translated question, not the question the officer asked.

1-3 Being interrogated in a common language that is not your mother tongue

Even more serious are cases where the interrogation is conducted in a language other than the suspect's mother tongue. The Tokyo High Court, in its judgment of 1 November 1994 (判時 no. 1546, p. 139), dealt with a Filipino defendant who understood only Ilocano but had been interrogated in Tagalog and English. The court said that, as long as a suitable interpreter for a language the suspect or defendant fully understands can be obtained, that language should be used, but held that where such an interpreter is hard to obtain, interrogation and trial may be conducted in another language the suspect or defendant can understand and communicate in.

In practice this reasoning is applied to every language community. A Punjabi speaker may get a Hindi interpreter, a Hokkien or Cantonese speaker a Mandarin interpreter, a Cebuano speaker a Tagalog interpreter. Being able to hold a daily conversation and being able to express, with precision, the subtle facts on which your criminal liability turns are two entirely different abilities. The standard of being able to communicate is not a standard of equivalence.

1-4 A failure of equivalence leaves no trace in the Japanese of the statement

Finally, the most important practical point. Mistranslations, omissions and excessive paraphrases cannot be detected by reading the finished Japanese statement. The statement is a complete, fluent Japanese document, and it carries no note saying that this passage was paraphrased by the interpreter. The failure of equivalence exists precisely in the form of something that is not on the record. That is why what is needed is not an after-the-fact check but a record made in parallel with the interrogation itself.

2 The dangers of interpretation arranged by the investigators

2-1 The statutory structure: the rules for trial interpreters do not reach investigation-stage interpreters

For interpretation at trial, Article 175 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑訴法) provides that when a person who does not understand Japanese is to make a statement, an interpreter must be used, and Article 178 applies the provisions of the chapter on expert witnesses. As a result, Article 166 (an expert witness must be sworn) applies to interpreters, and false interpretation is punishable in the same way as perjury.

Interpretation during the investigation, by contrast, rests on Article 223, paragraph 1. That paragraph merely provides that a public prosecutor, assistant prosecutor or judicial police official may, when necessary for the investigation of a crime, ask a person other than the suspect to appear and question that person, or commission expert examination, interpretation or translation. Paragraph 2 of the same Article applies only the proviso to Article 198, paragraph 1, and paragraphs 3 to 5 of Article 198; the provisions on oaths are not applied. Academic writing likewise treats investigation-stage interpretation as merely incidental and auxiliary to the interrogation, outside the scope of Article 175 and following, with no oath required (the non-expert-witness theory of Hagiwara Shosaburo, introduced in Tanaka Eha's paper on foreign-national cases and criminal justice, the right to an interpreter and court interpreters: 田中惠葉「外国人事件と刑事司法：通訳を受ける権利と司法通訳人に関する一考察」北大法学研究科ジュニア・リサーチ・ジャーナル vol. 12, p. 1, 2006).

In short, an investigation-stage interpreter is subject to none of the following.

Safeguard	Trial stage	Investigation stage
Who appoints	The court (with reference to the list of candidate interpreters compiled by the Supreme Court)	Commissioned by the investigating agency (Article 223, paragraph 1)
Oath	Yes (Articles 178, 171 and 166)	No provision
Prior screening	Interview by a judge, training	Internal practice of each agency
Record of what was interpreted	In principle the trial record and audio recording	No institutional mechanism for preservation
Public qualification	None (only a candidate list)	None

Note that Japan has no public certification system for court interpreters at all. The courts merely appoint interpreters with reference to the list of candidates compiled by the Supreme Court and secure their suitability through interviews by judges and training (Courts in Japan website, page on interpreters). If there is no qualification system even at the trial stage, the investigation stage can only be described as lying outside the system altogether.

2-2 A structural conflict of interest: the interpreter is an investigator

Police interpretation is organised on two tracks: police officers and other staff who speak a foreign language, and outside civilian interpreters (see, for example, the guidance published by the Aichi Prefectural Police). In other words, the system itself contemplates that the interpreter at an interrogation may be an employee of the very agency conducting it.

This has long been contested. In its judgment of 25 October 1983 (unreported), the Osaka High Court considered a defence argument that the interpreter was a police officer who was himself conducting the interrogation, so that the fairness of the interpretation could not be maintained. The court held that it was not desirable, from the standpoint of fair interpretation, for a police-officer interpreter to put to the defendant questions about the facts of the offence that the interrogating officer had discussed with him, and that this was one of the circumstances to be considered in assessing the admissibility of the statement, but that it was not appropriate to deny admissibility on that ground alone.

In its judgment of 30 July 1991 (unreported), the Osaka High Court said of an investigator doubling as the suspect's interpreter that, since this amounts to the investigator questioning the suspect in the suspect's own language, it could even be regarded as useful for a fuller interrogation and a more efficient investigation and could not be called improper or unlawful outright, but that it could not escape the criticism that it undermines the fairness of the interpretation.

The courts themselves acknowledge that the practice is not desirable and cannot escape the criticism that it undermines fairness, yet admissibility is not denied. What this structure means is clear. The problem of investigator-interpreters cannot be expected to be cured afterwards by the law of evidence; it has to be stopped at the scene of the investigation.

2-3 The same person interpreting at the investigation and at trial

In its judgment of 19 November 1991 (判時 no. 1436, p. 143), the Osaka High Court dealt with a ground of appeal that the interpreter appointed by the trial court was the same person who had interpreted throughout the investigation, that this person had formed prejudgments about the case, and that the accuracy and impartiality of the interpretation were therefore in doubt. The court pointed out, among other things, that defence counsel had raised no objection at the time of appointment or during the hearings, and found that the record showed no reason to doubt the interpreter's objectivity or accuracy.

The lesson for practitioners is plain. Unless a problem with the identity or neutrality of the interpreter is raised as a formal objection the moment it is noticed, the appeal court will dispose of it with the single observation that no objection was made.

2-4 No means of verification, and outside the scope of audio and video recording

In the case decided by the Tokyo High Court on 23 May 1991 (外国人犯罪裁判例集 p. 12), one ground of appeal was that there was no way to verify whether the interpretation at the investigation stage and at the trial had been accurate. The Mizuno paper cited above makes the same point: because the interpretation of important testimony and of the questioning of the defendant is not recorded, it cannot be checked afterwards.

Here the limits of Article 301-2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure come into play. Audio and video recording of interrogations is mandatory only for (1) offences punishable by death or life imprisonment (拘禁刑), (2) offences punishable by imprisonment with a minimum term of one year or more where the victim was killed by an intentional criminal act (that is, cases tried by lay-judge panels), and (3) cases not referred by the judicial police (that is, cases investigated by prosecutors on their own). The offences that make up the bulk of foreign-national cases, such as Immigration Control Act violations, theft, assault causing injury, possession or use of drugs and many fraud cases, fall outside mandatory recording.

Prosecutors have also been recording interrogations on a trial basis beyond the statutory categories, but the categories they have published are cases of suspects whose ability to communicate is impaired by an intellectual disability and cases where diminished or absent criminal responsibility is suspected because of a mental disorder (Supreme Public Prosecutors Office, report on the trial implementation of audio and video recording of suspect interrogations). Interrogation through an interpreter is not listed as a separate trial category. The one situation that most needs an objective record has fallen through the net.

2-5 A case where a failure of equivalence decided the credibility of a statement

Still, contesting the point can change the outcome. In its judgment of 10 November 1989 (判タ no. 729, p. 249), the Osaka High Court, in a prosecution under the Anti-Prostitution Act, considered the prosecutor's statement of a Thai woman who had since been deported. The defence argued that the investigation-stage interpreter had not distinguished between sexual intercourse and services other than intercourse, which was the key issue in the case, that another interpreter was a police officer engaged in the same investigation, and that the interpretation had been in English rather than Thai. The court noted that the interpreter, unable to speak Thai, had interpreted in English, and that the statement not only failed to record that it had been interpreted in English but also said nothing about how well the Thai woman spoke English. On these grounds it held that the credibility of the statement was in doubt.

What is striking is that the court was moved not by the correctness of any particular translation but by gaps in the record: the statement did not say what language had been used, and did not record the declarant's ability in that language. Equivalence reaches the court only when it is argued not as an abstract linguistic point but as a concrete hole in the record.

There is a further structural danger. In foreign-national cases it is routine for the victim or a co-suspect to be deported before trial, leaving only his or her prosecutor's statement in the courtroom. The Supreme Court, in its judgment of 20 June 1995 (刑集 vol. 49, no. 6, p. 741), held that where a prosecutor, knowing that a foreign national will eventually be removed from Japan and become unable to testify at trial or in trial preparation, deliberately exploits that situation, or where deportation is carried out even though a judge or court has ordered the examination of the witness, and it is found that tendering the foreign national's prosecutor's statement as evidence lacks fairness from the standpoint of procedural justice, the statement may not be admitted as evidence for finding facts. A statement whose interpretation is of doubtful equivalence becomes evidence without any opportunity for cross-examination. This is where the structural danger of foreign-national cases reaches its peak.

3 The right to counsel and the need for an interpreter of your own

3-1 Substantive protection of the right to assistance

Article 34 of the Constitution of Japan provides that no person shall be arrested or detained without being at once informed of the charges against him or without the immediate privilege of counsel, and Article 37, paragraph 3, provides that at all times the accused shall have the assistance of competent counsel. The Grand Bench of the Supreme Court, in its judgment of 24 March 1999 (民集 vol. 53, no. 3, p. 514), held that Article 34 guarantees a suspect in custody the opportunity to receive assistance from counsel, and that the investigating agency must consult with counsel, designate the earliest possible date and time for a meeting, and take measures enabling the suspect to prepare a defence with counsel.

One conclusion follows directly. For a suspect who does not understand Japanese, a meeting without an interpreter is not an opportunity to receive assistance. A meeting at which counsel cannot advise and the suspect cannot explain lacks the substance that Article 34 guarantees. Counsel attending with an interpreter of their own choosing is therefore neither a favour nor a convenience; it is the substantive protection of the right to counsel itself.

Article 14, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also guarantees, in subparagraph (a), the right to be informed promptly and in detail, in a language the person understands, of the nature and cause of the charge, and, in subparagraph (f), the right to the free assistance of an interpreter if the person cannot understand or speak the language used in court.

3-2 What securing a defence-side interpreter achieves

Article 39, paragraph 1, of the Code of Criminal Procedure guarantees a suspect in custody the right to meet counsel without any official present. An interpreter accompanying counsel is regarded as a person assisting counsel in the performance of their duties, not as an official present within the meaning of that paragraph, and it is common practice for counsel to attend meetings with an interpreter (some facilities ask for advance notice).

The practical value of securing a defence-side interpreter comes down to four points.

1. The defence strategy can be conveyed accurately in the suspect's own language under the protection of confidential communication. The investigators' interpreter is, in the interrogation room, someone working for the investigators. The defence must be organised so that this person never touches the content of the defence.
2. What was interpreted during the interrogation can be reconstructed the same day. This is the core of the quasi-presence arrangement described below.
3. The wording used by the investigators' interpreter can be compared with the wording used by the defence interpreter. To make equivalence an issue, there has to be something to compare it against.
4. At trial, the defence interpreter can check the court interpreter. In a case reported in the newsletter of the Aichi Bar Association, a foreign student's explanation was not being conveyed correctly, so counsel had their own interpreter observe the questioning of the defendant and filed a written opinion on the discrepancies in translation. The case ended in an acquittal.

In court-appointed (legal aid) cases the cost of the interpreter is an issue, so funding should be worked out immediately after the case is taken on.

4 The debate over counsel being present at interrogations

4-1 The current position: no statutory provision, and investigators almost never allow it

The Code of Criminal Procedure contains no provision on defence counsel being present at interrogations. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations (日弁連, JFBA) has criticised the fact that, although suspects and defendants are overwhelmingly the weaker party in an interrogation and the assistance of counsel is indispensable, and although many countries recognise a right to have counsel present, Japanese investigators almost never permit it. The JFBA is calling for legislation.

The history in brief is as follows.

• 13 April 2018: the JFBA submitted to the Minister of Justice an opinion calling for an express statutory right to have counsel present at interrogations
• 4 October 2019: the 62nd Human Rights Conference adopted a declaration calling for the establishment of the right to the assistance of counsel, under the title that presence at interrogations will change criminal justice
• 14 June 2024: resolution calling for audio and video recording of all cases and all stages and for the establishment of a right to have counsel present
• 24 July 2025: the Council on the Criminal Procedure Framework under the Amended Code of Criminal Procedure issued its summary. It expressed the hope that the government would set up a new forum to examine concrete reforms including expanding the scope of recording, but did not mention a right to have counsel present

The 2019 declaration identifies Articles 34 and 37, paragraph 3 (the right to the assistance of counsel) and Article 38, paragraph 1 (the right to remain silent) of the Constitution as the constitutional basis for the right of presence, and notes that the Human Rights Committee in 2008 and 2014 and the Committee against Torture in 2013 expressed concern and issued recommendations to the Japanese government. The Osaka Bar Association adds Article 31 (due process), Article 37, paragraph 1 (the right to trial by an impartial tribunal) and Article 38, paragraph 2 (the rule on confessions).

Comparatively, the United States has recognised the right since the Miranda decision of 1966; in the EU it is established in many countries including the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany; South Korea, following a 2003 Supreme Court ruling, expressly provided in its 2007 amendment for counsel's right to state opinions and raise objections; and Taiwan codified the right in its 1982 amendment. Japan, which does not allow counsel to be present, is the exception.

4-2 The idea of quasi-presence

While waiting for legislation, we cannot accept the conclusion that the suspect simply goes unprotected. What practitioners have developed is an arrangement that approximates presence, which this article calls quasi-presence. The Osaka Bar Association, starting from the reality that investigators refuse presence in almost every case, describes the method of counsel accompanying the suspect to the police station or prosecutor's office and waiting near the interrogation room so that the suspect can consult counsel at once.

Quasi-presence is not a legal term, nor an established practice. But the sequence of (1) formally requesting presence, (2) putting the refusal on the record, and (3) then stacking up alternative measures is the most that counsel can do to protect the suspect until the right of presence is enacted. And in foreign-national cases, a device for checking equivalence can be built into this quasi-presence. That is the central point of this article.

5 Designing quasi-presence around equivalence

Quasi-presence must not be allowed to end up as merely waiting nearby. If the objective is defined as putting the equivalence of an interpreted interrogation on the record as it happens, the tasks become concrete.

5-1 Before the interrogation begins: fix the equivalence of key terms in advance

At the first meeting after taking on the case, with the defence interpreter present, prepare a bilingual glossary of the legal concepts that will be in issue. For terms that separate guilt from innocence or determine complicity, such as conspiracy, intent, conditional intent, knew versus could have known, was asked versus was instructed, handed over versus left in someone's keeping versus carried, and just cause, fix an expression in the suspect's own language that the suspect actually understands, and make sure the suspect grasps the distinctions.

This is not mere preparation. It becomes the baseline against which you later check how the investigators' interpreter rendered each of those words. Without a baseline, an allegation of mistranslation ends in a stalemate of assertion against assertion.

At the same time, prepare a set phrase declining to make a statement, written in both Japanese and the suspect's language, and have the suspect keep it. For a suspect who does not understand Japanese, the right to silence is not only a right to be informed of; it is a right that must be handed over in a form that can actually be exercised.

5-2 Requesting presence, and requesting alternative measures if refused

Before the interrogation, make the request in writing. To be effective, do not write only the request for presence; list in the same document the alternative measures you demand if presence is refused.

Request	Purpose
Presence of defence counsel	The primary request. Puts the fact of refusal and the reasons on the record
Audio and video recording of the entire interrogation	Even in cases outside Article 301-2, demanded on the ground that an interpreted interrogation cannot be verified afterwards
Disclosure of the interpreter's name, working language and interpreting experience	Identifies whether the interpreter is an investigator and whether the interpreter works in the suspect's mother tongue
Identification of the interpreter and of the start and end times at every session	Tracks changes of interpreter and continuity
Express notation in the statement of the language of interpretation and whether a translation is attached	Closes the gaps in the record that the Osaka High Court judgment of 10 November 1989 treated as grounds for doubting credibility
Immediate suspension of the interrogation whenever the suspect asks to meet counsel	The precondition for quasi-presence to be effective

5-3 Accompanying and waiting, and meeting immediately after the interrogation

Counsel accompany the suspect to the police station or prosecutor's office during the hours of the interrogation whenever possible, and wait there. The suspect is told in advance, in concrete words in both the mother tongue and Japanese, to ask for the interrogation to be suspended and for a meeting with counsel whenever a doubt arises.

Then, immediately after the day's interrogation ends, counsel meet the suspect with the defence interpreter. The task at that meeting is the following reconstruction.

1. Have the suspect reproduce, in his or her own language, the officer's questions and the answers given, as far as they can be remembered
2. Identify words whose meaning was unclear, questions that were hard to answer, and points where a correction was requested but not made
3. Confirm whether the statement was read back, in what language, and whether a translation was attached
4. Record the interpreter's name, sex, the language spoken, and whether the interpreter appeared to be a police officer
5. Enter all of this in counsel's notes together with the date, the time and whether anyone else was present

If this is done after every session, the failure of equivalence can be presented at trial concretely, as a comparison between the reconstruction counsel made on the day and the investigators' statement. Whether the point can be argued as a dated and timed fact rather than an abstraction is what decides the case. Having the suspect keep a suspect's diary in his or her own language is also effective.

5-4 How to handle the making of the statement

Article 198, paragraph 4, of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that the statement must be shown or read to the suspect, who must be asked whether it contains any errors, and that if the suspect requests additions, deletions or changes, that request must be entered in the statement. Paragraph 5 provides that when the suspect confirms the statement is free of error, he or she may be asked to sign and seal it, and the proviso expressly states that this does not apply if the suspect refuses.

In foreign-national cases, therefore, the following instructions are given without exception.

• Unless the statement is read back in your own language, you have not been able to confirm its contents. Say so
• Do not sign or seal, on the footing that you have understood it, a statement to which no translation is attached
• Make requests for additions, deletions or changes specifically, and confirm on the spot, in your own language, that they have been entered
• If corrections are not reflected, refuse to sign and seal (Article 198, paragraph 5, proviso)

Refusing to sign and seal goes directly to the admissibility of the statement (Article 322, paragraph 1, requires a document bearing the signature or seal of the accused). It is the most powerful and most reliable means of defence available. For a suspect placed in a setting where equivalence is not secured, the decision not to sign is not a passive attitude but an active exercise of a right.

5-5 Bringing the issue into the open at trial

At trial, the following should be done early.

• If the investigation-stage interpreter is the same person as the court interpreter, object at the appointment stage (the Osaka High Court judgment of 19 November 1991 relied partly on the absence of an objection)
• Have the defence interpreter observe the trial and file a written opinion on the court interpreter's renderings (the Aichi Bar Association case cited above)
• Call the investigation-stage interpreter as a witness and establish the language of interpretation, background, any involvement in the investigation, the method used (word for word or summary), and how the disputed terms were rendered
• Where an audio or video recording of the interrogation exists, request its examination and verify the interpreted passages concretely

6 Summary

In a case involving a foreign national, interpretation is not an incidental part of the procedure. It is the very gateway to fact-finding. Investigation-stage interpreters take no oath, hold no qualification and are subject to no challenge procedure; the system even contemplates investigators acting as interpreters; and what they interpret is, as a rule, not recorded. The courts say the practice cannot escape the criticism that it undermines fairness, yet stop short of denying admissibility. That is where the law currently stands.

Protecting a client's rights within this structure takes more than contesting the evidence afterwards. Counsel must secure an interpreter of their own, formally request presence, put the refusal on the record, and then build the quasi-presence arrangement: accompanying and waiting, meeting immediately afterwards, reconstructing the session, keeping a glossary, and refusing to sign and seal where appropriate. Each element must be designed as a record for checking equivalence. Until the right of presence is written into law, this is the most effective defence counsel can mount.

Our office has handled a large number of cases involving foreign nationals, with a particular focus on Chinese-speaking clients. A dedicated in-house Chinese interpreter experienced in foreign-national cases is available at all times, and interpreters for other languages are arranged according to the needs of each case. Much of this work cannot be done once the interrogation has started. If you learn that someone has been arrested or detained, please contact us as early as possible.

7 Frequently asked questions

Q1 Can I refuse the police interpreter and bring my own?

There are almost no cases in which investigators have allowed a defence-side interpreter to sit in on the interrogation. What can be done is to put the refusal itself on the record and to reconstruct the content of the interrogation through the defence interpreter immediately afterwards. The realistic approach is not to refuse the investigators' interpreter but to have a separate interpreter of your own.

Q2 Will it count against me if I do not sign the statement?

The proviso to Article 198, paragraph 5, of the Code of Criminal Procedure expressly recognises the right to refuse to sign and seal. Declining to sign a statement that was not read back to you in your own language and whose contents you could not confirm is a legitimate exercise of a right, and it is not treated as a disadvantage in itself. A signed statement that becomes evidence at trial (Article 322, paragraph 1) has far heavier consequences.

Q3 Can interpretation errors be challenged in court later?

They can, but it is not easy. Investigation-stage interpretation is as a rule not recorded, so there is no material with which to verify what the interpreter actually said. That is exactly why the quasi-presence preparation described above matters: a defence-side reconstruction made immediately after the interrogation, and a glossary of the disputed terms fixed in advance.

Q4 My family does not speak Japanese. Where should we contact?

A dedicated in-house Chinese interpreter experienced in foreign-national cases is available at our office at all times, and interpreters for other languages, including English, are arranged according to the needs of each case. You can reach us by WeChat (ID: matsumura1119) or through our website.

This article is a general explanation. For advice on a specific case, please consult a lawyer directly.

Past results depend on the individual circumstances of each case and do not guarantee a similar outcome.

This article reflects the position as of September 2026.

8 References and sources

• 日本弁護士連合会 (Japan Federation of Bar Associations), page on the presence of defence counsel at interrogations; declaration calling for the establishment of the right to the assistance of counsel (presence at interrogations will change criminal justice) (4 October 2019); statement by the President calling for prompt amendment of the law following the summary of the Council on the Criminal Procedure Framework under the Amended Code of Criminal Procedure (24 July 2025)
• 大阪弁護士会 (Osaka Bar Association), page titled No Interrogation without Presence: towards defence counsel's presence at interrogations
• 毛利雅子 (Mohri Masako), The possibility of maintaining linguistic equivalence in legal interpreting: an attempt at an English translation of an indictment, 日本大学大学院総合社会情報研究科紀要 vol. 7, p. 391 (2006)
• 水野かほる (Mizuno Kahoru), The accuracy of legal interpreting in cases involving foreign nationals: observations from cases requiring interpretation, 言語政策 vol. 4 (2008)
• 田中惠葉 (Tanaka Eha), Foreign-national cases and criminal justice: a study of the right to an interpreter and court interpreters, 北大法学研究科ジュニア・リサーチ・ジャーナル vol. 12, p. 1 (2006)
• Courts in Japan website, page on interpreters (通訳人)
• 最高検察庁 (Supreme Public Prosecutors Office), report on the trial implementation of audio and video recording of suspect interrogations
• 愛知県弁護士会 (Aichi Bar Association), Diary of a Criminal Defence Lawyer (83): acquittal of a foreign student

Author

Daisuke Matsumura (松村大介), Attorney at Law (Bengoshi)

Member of the Dai-Ichi Tokyo Bar Association (registration no. 59077, registered 2019)

Funado International Law Office (舟渡国際法律事務所), Fuse Building Main Bldg. 3F, 3-4-10 Takada, Toshima-ku, Tokyo

Main areas of practice: criminal defence of foreign nationals, centred on Chinese clients, and immigration procedures.

Results include an acquittal in a Stimulants Control Act case (possession for profit), a decision not to prosecute in a special fraud case, and the grant of special permission to stay (在留特別許可) in a case regarded as extremely difficult.

Funado International Law Office

Website: https://matsumura-lawoffice.jp/

WeChat ID (微信ID): matsumura1119

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