Overview
- Japan’s Cabinet, which approved the bill Friday, sent it to the Diet to make prosecutors’ challenges to court orders that reopen closed criminal cases largely off-limits.
- The proposal removes the blanket right to appeal, permits challenges only when there is a clear legal basis, tightens special appeals to the Supreme Court, sets a one‑year review target, and adds penalties for misusing disclosed evidence.
- Government seismologists reported slow horizontal shifts after the April 20 Aomori quake, with parts of Iwate moving about 2 centimeters east over roughly 10 days and some sites showing wider crustal change.
- The investigation into the May 6 Ban’etsu Expressway bus crash found Niigata police twice asked the now‑arrested driver in April to surrender his license, sharpening questions over checks on driver fitness.
- The Tokyo District Court dismissed prisoner Joji Orihara’s defamation suit against Netflix and the Asahi over a documentary and interview, ruling the claims of reputational harm were not proven.