The end of Lockheed affair<\/p>\n
It took 19 years but the Lockheed Scandal in Japan has finally
\nrun its course. The Jakarta Post Asia correspondent Harvey
\nStockwin reports from Tokyo on the final verdict.<\/p>\n
TOKYO (JP): It is very hard to believe that at long last it is
\nall over.<\/p>\n
After nineteen years wending its circuitous way through the
\nslow-moving Japanese custom of justice, rokkiido mondai (the
\nLockheed Problem) has been legally resolved.<\/p>\n
After countless headlines, as many intrigues, much empty
\nmoralizing and some incredible twists and turns, the late, great
\nformer Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka finally goes into
\nthe history books as a convicted felon, who only escaped doing
\nfour years in prison because he died first, in 1993.<\/p>\n
Last Wednesday the Japanese Supreme Court, after eight years
\non the case pondering its decision, finally got around to
\nupholding the verdicts of lower courts: yes, Tanaka-san was
\nguilty of taking a 500 million yen bribe from Lockheed
\nCorporation to "encourage" All-Nippon Airways (ANA) to buy
\nTrisStar jets for their growing fleet.<\/p>\n
The two surviving appellate who lives long enough to bring
\nthis final appeal are unlikely to be imprisoned now that their
\nguilt is confirmed. One is 85 years old and unlikely to be
\nrequired to do time, while the other was only sentenced to a
\nsuspended sentence in the first place. (Technically, Tanaka was
\nno longer a defendant as the Supreme Court dropped his case when
\nhe died.)<\/p>\n
There were two interesting -- and ironic -- nuances to the
\nSupreme Court decision:<\/p>\n
No, the acquisition of evidence by the prosecution through
\ndepositions taken by foreign court (in the United States) was not
\npermissible by the Japanese rules of the game.<\/p>\n
Yes, Tanaka was well within his Prime Ministerial powers in
\ngiving "guidance" to the Transport Ministry, which, in turn,
\npassed it on to ANA, that Lockheed TrisStars should be purchased.<\/p>\n
The first decision meant that Tanaka's defense counsel won
\ntheir point even as they lost the case. It was ironic because the
\nSupreme Court itself had seemingly legitimized the procedure,
\nwhereby Lockheed executives gave deposition in a U.S. court in
\nreturn for pledges of immunity. In 1976, the Supreme Court
\nendorsed the promise of immunity. It has not explained why it did
\nnot advise on the illegality of the procedure at that time.<\/p>\n
Tanaka's defense had claimed that the depositions were
\nunconstitutional. The Supreme Court rejected this but did confirm
\nthat there was no provision in Japan's Criminal Procedure Law
\nvalidating such a procedure -- something, one would have
\nthought, that it might have pointed out nineteen years ago.<\/p>\n
The defense objected to the procedure because, when the
\nevidence was taken from the Lockheed executives in the American
\ncourt, the defense counsel had absolutely no opportunity to
\ncross-examine -- a concern which the Supreme Court has now said
\nwas legitimate.<\/p>\n
But while this ruling might have made waves in 1976, when this
\nforeign-sourced evidence was thought to be crucial to any
\nconviction, the Supreme Court said that evidence from other
\nsources amply proved Tanaka's guilt.<\/p>\n
The second decision, concerning Prime Ministerial power, was a
\nsplit one with eight justices endorsing a wider interpretation of
\nprime minister's power than that endorsed by lower courts, and
\nfour justices having some caveats on the vexed subject of
\n"administrative guidance", the means whereby bureaucrats advise
\nbusinesses what they have to do. But even the minority went
\nfurther than the lower courts had done in defining prime
\nministerial powers.<\/p>\n
All this is exceedingly ironic given the political fact that
\nKakuei Tanaka was the first -- and perhaps the only -- Japanese
\nPrime Minister to behave as prime minister behave everywhere else
\nexcept Japan.<\/p>\n
As Minister of Trade, as Minister of Finance and as Prime
\nMinister Tanaka was not afraid to give bureaucrats directions on
\nthe assumption that ministers head their department and prime
\nministers are the head of government. Usually in Japan it is the
\nbureaucrats who direct the politicians.<\/p>\n
Some Japanese will always believe that what brought Tanaka
\ndown was the very fact that he did go against the norm -- and the
\nbureaucrats, knowing lots of things because of the over-
\nregulation of the Japanese financial system, helped bring him
\nwith some discreet leaks.<\/p>\n
The trouble with Kakuei Tanaka was not that he used the Prime
\nMinistership to give thrust and direction to the often moribund
\nface of Japanese politics -- but that he expected to get paid for
\nit way beyond his salary. The Lockheed bribe (US$5 million at
\ntoday's exchange rates but less than $2 million when the bribe
\nwas given) was indeed, as Tanaka reportedly described it, "mere
\npeanuts". But it came in more easily traceable foreign exchange,
\nand that was Tanaka's undoing. Unquestionably he made far greater
\nsums closer to home. He set a tradition of money-politics which
\nhas yet to be purged from the political scene here.<\/p>\n
In that sense, rokkiido mondai is still with us. One is left
\nnostalgically wondering how much different things would have been
\nhad Tanaka linked his personal dynamism to a distaste for
\npersonal enrichment, basing his political appeal on personality
\nand policy rather than cash handouts. Had this happened, it might
\nhave produced a very different, much more internationally
\nacceptable, Japan.<\/p>\n
Some of this appeal filters through from ordinary Japanese as
\nthe Supreme Court ends the legal affairs.<\/p>\n
"What a pity Kakuei-san is not around to hear all this -- it
\nwould have been so dramatic to see him go off to prison," one
\nJapanese journalist comments and I suspect she is emphatically
\nnot alone.<\/p>\n
Many Japanese never expected Tanaka to be convicted. Belief in
\ntheir system of government would be that much stronger today
\namong Japanese had the final verdict been reached much earlier.<\/p>\n
Jokes are seldom told about Japanese politicians but one on
\nTanaka bears retelling. "Wherever he is now," the saying goes,
\n"you can be sure he is hard at work trying to establish the
\nlargest single faction there -- before (former Prime Minister
\nNoboru) Takeshita and (opposition leader once Tanaka protege)
\nIchiro Ozawa come and join him".<\/p>\n
Tanaka was the only true commoner to become Prime Minister
\nsince 1945. He merely graduated in the high school of experience.
\nOrdinary people could relate to him as they have related to few
\nothers.<\/p>\n
As it happened, Tanaka's daughter, Makiko, who is Minister for
\nScience and Technology in the present cabinet, underlined
\nfeelings of nostalgia as she spoke after the verdict, in
\ntypically feisty fashion, on her father's behalf.<\/p>\n
"I wish the decision could have come out while he was alive,"
\nMakiko said "I wish there had been a speedy trial. That was what
\nmy father expected... As far as I see this trial, I cannot help
\nhaving the impression that an impartial and fair trial cannot be
\nexpected in the Japanese judicial system".<\/p>\n
For this last comment she has been gently chided by cabinet
\ncolleagues, who will no doubt accept her display of Confucian
\nfilial piety, and less gently by the opposition. Despite the fact
\nthat Tanaka sent her to the best U.S. schools, Makiko, is a chip
\noff the old block.<\/p>\n
It is widely considered impossible for any Japanese women to
\naspire to become Prime Minister. If anyone can do it, Makiko is
\nthe one. Hopefully behind the hot words after the final verdict
\nlies a clear recognition of where Dad went wrong.<\/p>\n
But her point on where the Japanese judicial system goes wrong
\nis well taken. The 19 years taken before the case concluded is
\nabject by any standards. "It was so long that I feel as if I have
\nalready been punished" said one of the defendants whose final
\nappeal has now been answered.<\/p>\n
"The protracted judicial process undermines the
\nconstitutionally guaranteed right to a fair and speedy trial,"
\nthe Yomiuri Shimbun editorialized, "Exceedingly long trials in
\neffect constitute abandonment of a basic mission of the judicial
\nsystem."<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/the-end-of-lockheed-affair-1447893297",
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