Takemune Sato, secretary-general of the Akashi City Pedestrian Overpass Accident Lawyer.ⓒEPN Shin Seon-yeong There are lawyers who have stood by the bereaved families of Akashi City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan in 2001 for over 20 years of fighting over a stampede. The lawyers (lawyers) consisted of 6 people, and it is said that they aimed for a small number of people who could respond quickly to changes in the situation. In June of last year, lawyer Yoshiyasu Watanabe, who was the representative of the defense team, died at the age of 67. Takemune Sato (65), the secretary general of the defense team, was born and raised in Akashi City. Until his accident he went to see the annual fireworks display at City Hall. He is very interested in how to scientifically identify the cause of the disaster and lead to prevention of recurrence. He asked him about the Akashish overpass accident and the Itaewon disaster. What was it like watching the Itaewon disaster in South Korea? As someone who has been deeply involved in the Akashi City overpass accident, I thought they were very similar. Many people lost their lives because the police did not come to the first place where they needed to deploy personnel. In the case of Akashi City, the key was the stairway part of the overpass that became narrow with the bottleneck structure. Police did not man the overpass even though sufficient congestion was expected. In South Korea’s Itaewon, a crowd gathered in the narrow alley next to the hotel, but there was no judo man. As a result, a ‘crowd avalanche’ occurred in which the crowd lost their balance and fell all at once in close contact. I have heard several testimonies from the bereaved and injured of the overpass accident that a certain woman passed out while standing. Even the scene after the accident was so similar that it was shocking. The only difference is that in Akashi City, there were many children who came with their parents to enjoy the street stalls (night market) while watching fireworks, and in Seoul, there were many young people who came to enjoy the Halloween festival. Halloween, which triggered the Itaewon disaster, is an event without an organizer. Who should be held accountable? In the end, I think we have no choice but to file a problem with the police. In Japan, the handling of accidents on public roads is basically done by the police, but I don’t think Korea will be any different. Whether it was the traffic police or the public security guards would be a bit controversial, but the police had to make enough plans and respond on the same day to prevent an accident from such a huge congestion (the alley where the Itaewon disaster occurred is a private road on the register) It is reported that there are more than 30 people, including the Hamilton Hotel operator. However, regardless of whether or not the public road is involved, the current police responsibility is being disputed). In South Korea, the head of the Yongsan Fire Station was sent to the prosecution, claiming that he caused the disaster by failing to respond appropriately. Wouldn’t it be a little difficult (for the fire chief to take appropriate action on the spot)? In a stampede situation, it takes a long time to get to the scene. Once a cardiac arrest occurs due to a crowd avalanche, the chances of survival are greatly reduced after only 3 to 5 minutes. In Itaewon, a police report related to a stampede came in from 6:34 pm on the same day. In Akashi City, there was also a report from 8:00 pm, about an hour before the accident. It’s a hard problem. Normally, 110 (112 in Korea) is paralyzed (when calls are rushed all at once, as in a stampede accident). In addition, if the congestion guard plan is not properly planned in advance, even if a report comes in, it is not well connected to the decision to move the unit. Several large-scale stampede accidents occurred in Japan after the war. Police and security companies have been researching who should do congestion guarding and how. There are several rules of thumb established in the process. The most necessary thing in order not to cause a stampede accident is to establish a plan, and another thing is to thoroughly inform the people concerned. The third is same-day response. In percentage terms, they are 80%, 10%, and 10%, respectively. In the case of the overpass accident, Akashi City Hall, which hosted the fireworks display, formed an accident investigation committee 12 days after the accident. It seems that he believed that if he left it to the police investigation, a conclusion that would suit the taste of the police would come out. It’s like a thief becoming a judge. Of course, Akashi City is also a party, but the Accident Investigation Committee investigated the overpass accident, revealing that it was independent of City Hall. I was also going to suggest that Akashi City not make an accident investigation committee properly, but one of the Akashi City officials said that it was decided. Around the time of the overpass accident, as major earthquakes and various fire and collapse accidents continued, there was a social consensus in Japan that the Accident Investigation Committee was very important. I learned the importance of this while supporting the bereaved families of the Shigaraki Kogen Railway accident in 1991. The Shiga Prefectural Police Headquarters, which was in charge of the investigation of the accident, struggled with unfamiliar railroad terminology, and it took more than a year and a half from the accident to the prosecution). Children are looking closely at the statue of a young girl, the ‘Image of the Heart’, erected on the overpass. ⓒEPN Shin Seon-young Why is the Accident Investigation Committee important? It is difficult to determine the professional cause through a police investigation. Trains were stopped for six months to investigate the Shigaraki Kogen railway accident. Will an accident on the Shinkansen stop a year? It is very important to secure the best experts in the field in advance. There are other limitations when the police become the center of an accident investigation. In the end, the focus is on ‘who should take responsibility as the culprit’. The perspective of recurrence prevention, ‘what must be done to prevent this kind of accident from happening again’, has weakened. When the Shigaraki railway accident occurred, there was an ‘Air Accident Investigation Committee’ in Japan, but there was no railway. As a result of working with the bereaved family for 10 years, in 2001, the ‘Air and Rail Investigation Committee’ was created. It is often assumed that the police investigate when an accident occurs, but there are many countries that have developed accident investigation committees, such as Sweden, Finland, and the United States. In the case of a stampede accident like the Itaewon disaster, would it be better to set up an accident investigation committee? I think it would be nice to have In particular, in the case of a stampede accident, an accident investigation agency that is independent from the police and organizers is absolutely necessary. For example, ordinary railroad accidents have nothing to do with the responsibility of the police. On the other hand, in the case of the Akashishi overpass accident, ‘who should guard over congestion’ itself became a problem. The police insisted on the ‘autonomous security theory’, in which the organizers took primary responsibility. The bereaved family countered that only the police could enforce on-site regulation. Just because the entity that owns and manages the overpass is Akashi City, will the city hall staff wave a red pole and people will listen? In the end, it was the legal battle of the Akashish overpass accident that ‘the police should bear the final responsibility for guarding congestion’ (therefore, an accident investigation independent of the police is required). The criminal trial alone took 15 years. This is Japan’s first ‘forced prosecution’ case. Victim participation in criminal proceedings is a very recent change in Japan. In the past, it was said to just listen without saying anything in the audience, but following the trend of judicial reform in Japan, I tried to reveal the truth even a little by using a system that had not been used much until then. There were challenges and setbacks, but the challenge was also the prosecution review meeting (a system in which citizens selected by lottery deliberate on whether the prosecution’s disposition of non-prosecution was appropriate). No matter how much the prosecution review committee decided on ‘worthiness of prosecution’, the prosecution had to ignore it. Twice under the old law and twice under the new law, I received a resolution of ‘equivalent to prosecution’. Before filing for the third indictment, he also conducted a ‘pretend to be dead operation’. I kept quiet so that the people of the world would know that the bereaved family had given up, and then filed for prosecution as soon as the new law came into effect (laughs). The former Akashi police chief died and the head of the department was acquitted. failed to cross the statute of limitations. Working as a lawyer, I thought that this case had a pretty good chance of being guilty if the chief and department head were prosecuted… . Being acquitted by statute of limitations is actually the same as being innocent. I was frustrated at that part. As expected, the most regrettable part is that the chief cannot be held criminally responsible. There are several steps to the decision that leads to a stampede. After all, it is the chief’s job to create a security plan in advance and decide that it will work, and to recognize the danger through a 110 report or a report from the on-site police officer and order the deployment of the riot police. The head of the department says that although he stopped, the chief made several decisions that led to accidents, and if the chief had not died, he would have been able to verify which of the two was correct. I think the fact that the chief died on the way and the trial became only for the department head influenced the decision to acquit. He filed a civil lawsuit and won. Based on your experience with the Accident Investigation Committee, criminal trials, and civil trials, what advice would you give to the legal response to the Itaewon disaster in Korea? If criminal responsibility works, I think criminal responsibility is also good. Criminal trial is the process of deciding ‘who is responsible and should go to prison’. Criminal responsibility is, in principle, borne by the individual. In the case of the Akashi City accident, the Akashi Police Department regional officer and the branch manager of the security company went to prison. that’s what it means On the other hand, civil liability is a procedure to determine who is obliged to compensate for the damage caused by the accident. In this case, the defendant may be an organization or an individual. In the Akashi City accident, the bereaved family became the plaintiff, and the Akashi City, Hyogo Prefectural Police, and the security company became the defendants, and all three parties were recognized as liable for compensation. Civil trials cannot ‘punish’ someone, but instead of calling the person concerned to court and asking the prosecution to interrogate them, we can directly interrogate the chief or department head as the plaintiff’s representative. That’s the great thing about civil trials. In the civil trial, the police took a camera with almost the same performance as the surveillance camera installed on the roof of a hotel near the scene and verified it. Even if he didn’t know his face, he could tell whether he was tall or short and what he was wearing. If the police had been watching the camera properly, they would have been able to respond before the situation escalated. However, it remains a mystery why the video of that day was not recorded and whether the police watched the video or not. Akashi’s bereaved family and Itaewon’s bereaved family are also slandered. The ridiculous misunderstandings of some members of society must be resolved. In order to do that, the truth must be revealed. It is truly regrettable and regrettable that so many young lives have been taken away this time. At least what we can do is to clarify both ‘how this accident happened’ and ‘who is to blame’ as a slightly different issue. By doing so, I hope everyone will do their best to clarify the guidelines for preventing recurrence. Even if it cannot be enforced as a criminal responsibility, there are many safety measures that might have reduced the probability of accidents even a little. A sculpture erected by Akashi City to commemorate the 11 victims of the overpass accident. 11 colors are available. ⓒEPN Shin Seon-yeong has helped the bereaved families of various disasters for a long time. When an accident occurred, there was a public defender system for the suspect or defendant, but there was no system for the victim’s family to have a lawyer attached. There was a time when the bereaved family did not receive the paper trial materials properly, so there was a time when they had no choice but to diligently write them down in a notebook. Even the right to attend the trial was not given priority over reporters. It’s changed a bit now. Lawyers are said to be a profession that protects human rights, and I thought it would be meaningful to work hard not only for the rights recognized by the suspect or accused, but also for the rights that were not guaranteed to the bereaved family of the victim. Because I became a lawyer. That’s how I joined forces with fellow lawyers from the Shigaraki accident and the Akashi city accident, thinking that it would be nice if the system could be changed for the victims’ families, so I’ve been working hard.
ssn-general
“We need to find out how it happened and who is responsible.”
