The Peace Preservation Law: Japan’s 1941 Revision and Ideological Control

Japan comprehensively revised its existing Peace Preservation Law in 1941. Promulgated as Law No. 54 on 10 March, the new version comprised sixty-five articles in three chapters: offenses, criminal procedure and preventive detention. Imperial Ordinance No. 553 subsequently fixed commencement on 15 May. The revision combined punishable conduct, investigative and trial procedures, and arrangements for detention after a prison sentence in a single law.

During a House of Representatives committee hearing on 12 February, Vice-Minister of Justice Miyake Shōtarō stated that the government considered the previous law, principally directed at Communist Party-type organizations, inadequate for dispersed activity, affiliated groups and preparations to rebuild organizations. He also included national independence movements and certain religious movements among the targets of suppression. These statements show that extending control over political and ideological activity was a major purpose of the proposed revision.

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Article 1 addressed associations formed to “alter the national polity,” prescribing death, life imprisonment or at least seven years of imprisonment with labor for organizers and leaders. Articles 2 and 3 extended punishment to groups supporting such associations or preparing for their formation. Article 4 covered collective bodies that had not yet reached the level of an association.

Article 5 penalized consultation, incitement, propaganda and other acts pursuing these purposes. Article 7 separately addressed associations formed to disseminate material denying the national polity or desecrating shrines or the dignity of the imperial family. Article 10 retained penalties for associations seeking to deny the system of private property. Provisions on associations, collective groups and actions thus covered several forms of activity.

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The second chapter gave prosecutors powers of direct summons, arrest, detention and interrogation, and allowed them to direct judicial police in carrying out relevant measures. Article 23 set detention at two months, with monthly extensions authorized by the chief prosecutor when particularly necessary, up to a cumulative limit of one year. Investigations could therefore proceed during lengthy confinement.

Defense counsel had to be chosen from lawyers designated in advance by the Minister of Justice, generally with no more than two per defendant. Article 33 removed the ordinary intermediate appeal against a first-instance conviction while retaining direct final appeal. The law expanded the authorities’ powers and narrowed defendants’ choice of lawyer and access to ordinary appellate review.

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Under Article 39, a person imprisoned for an offense under the law who would otherwise be released on completing the sentence could be placed in preventive detention by a court at a prosecutor’s request if judged to pose a marked danger of repeating a similar offense. Some people who had already completed sentences or received suspended sentences and were under protective supervision as thought offenders could also be included. A preventive detention committee had to be consulted before the request, with the decision made by a court.

Preventive detention lasted two years but could be renewed by the court; the law imposed no limit on the number of renewals. Article 53 required confinement in special facilities and measures intended to bring about “repentance.” Completing a criminal sentence therefore did not guarantee freedom: an official assessment of ideological danger could justify continued detention.

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The law also affected Korean students studying in Japan. In the Yun Dong-ju case studied by legal scholar Suzuki Keifu, the Second Criminal Division of the Kyoto District Court sentenced the poet to two years’ imprisonment with labor under Article 5 on 31 March 1944, crediting 120 days of pretrial detention.

The judgment reproduced in the paper treated discussions of Korean independence with classmates, encouragement to study Korean language and culture, and lending books on Korean history as actions pursuing alteration of the national polity. Suzuki criticizes this expansive interpretation of “acts pursuing the purpose.” National cultural identity and student contacts were incorporated into a narrative of political crime, showing how an abstract purpose-based provision affected personal lives.

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After Japan’s defeat in 1945, the cabinet of Shidehara Kijūrō promulgated Imperial Ordinance No. 575. Article 1 repealed the Peace Preservation Law, the Thought Offender Protective Supervision Law and several related colonial public order statutes. Its supplementary provision made it effective on promulgation, 15 October. The comprehensively revised version thus ceased to have legal force.

The 1941 law’s main change was to connect expanded substantive offenses, strengthened criminal procedures and preventive detention. It punished activities judged political and prolonged personal control through assessments of danger after a sentence had ended. Organizational activity, personal contacts and the conditions for regaining freedom were all drawn into this system of ideological control.

References: [1] [2] [4] [5]