일본 검찰의 쇼와전공 사건 수사에 관한 소고 = A Study on the Japanese Public Prosecution`s Investigation of the Showa Denko Case

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Showa Denko Case is the incident where a Japanese chemical fertilizer company, Showa Denko, offered enormous bribe to the political circles to have the loan of money from Local Government Capital Development Grant which was established after the end of a war. During the investigation of this incident, the incumbent Prime Minister, Ashida Hitoshi, was placed under arrest and the Cabinet collapsed, and it became the 3rd case among 5 cases where the Cabinet collapsed through investigation and prosecution after the investigation and prosecution system was introduced to Japan. It is officially known that the investigation started on this incident from the exposure of a member of the Diet however the received opinion is that it was rather led by political conspiracy based on the secret feud for power within GHQ which ruled Japan at the time. In other words, Ashida Administration at the time was the coalition cabinet of three parties including Democratic Party, Socialist Party, and National Cooperation Party which claimed to stand for centrism and it was being upheld by GS (Government Section) within GHQ, and the G2 (General Staff Section 2) within GS caused this incident by apprehending the close relationship between the deputy director of GS, Colonel Charles L. Kades and the president of Showa Denko, Hinohara. In this incident, 43 out of 60 people who were subjected to investigation were prosecuted, it took 14 years and 6 months until the trial at the Supreme Court, and most defendants including Prime Minister Ashida were given a verdict of not guilty and the reason was that it was not the matter of admitting the truth but that it was not relevant to their duties. This has great meaning in terms of the history of prosecution and investigation. Concerning Prime Minister Ashida was found innocent for his act of accepting the money for connecting the supplier to the minister in charge of the related business was not related with the Prime Minister`s duty, and the Influence Peddling Act was newly established in order to correct such irrationality. Also, the prosecution which was deprived of the primary investigative right to the police after the war found an opportunity for independent investigation and established the Special Investigation Division under Tokyo District Public Prosecutor`s Office. In other words, the police began the investigation of this incident however the subject of suspicion, Kades of GS distrusted police investigation and ordered the prosecution to investigate in order to prove his innocence, and the reason the Special Investigation Division was established only in 5 months after the investigation for this case closed is that GHQ rated the investigative capacity of the prosecution high. However, some criticized that the prosecution could not thoroughly investigate the corruption of the conservative politicians who ruled the political circles of Japan afterwards due to the inherent limit of the Special Investigation Division of the prosecution which contributed to the birth of the conservative government.