2 Disposition in courts
(1) General status
The number of foreign nationals (refers to foreign defendants) convicted in a court of first instance was 3,658 in 2011 (down 17.9% from the previous year), with the proportion to the total number of convicted persons being 5.6% (Source: Annual Report of Judicial Statistics).
The number of persons conclusively disposed in cases requiring interpreters (refers to cases in which foreign defendants required interpreters/translators; hereinafter the same in this subsection) was 2,658 (down 20.7% from the previous year) in 2011. A total of 42 different languages were used in those interpretations: in descending order of frequency, Chinese for 887 defendants (33.4%), Tagalog 324 (12.2%), Korean 251 (9.4%), Portuguese 221 (8.3%), Vietnamese 209 (7.9%), Spanish 201 (7.6%), and English 198 (7.4%) (Source: The General Secretariat, Supreme Court).
(2) Sentencing
Fig. 4-1-3-4 shows the number of persons convicted and sentenced (limited to imprisonment with or without work) in a court of first instance in cases requiring interpreters over the last 10 years. The number of persons convicted was decreasing from 2004, and was 2,553 (of whom no one was sentenced to life imprisonment) in 2011. The suspended execution rate was remarkably high at 75.2% when compared to that with Japanese nationals (57.5%). This is due to the fact that the suspended execution rate for Immigration Control Act violation cases requiring interpreters was significantly high at 93.6%. The suspended execution rate for cases requiring interpreters, but excluding Immigration Control Act violations, was 69.2% (Source: The General Secretariat, Supreme Court).
Fig. 4-1-3-4 Number of persons convicted (those sentenced to imprisonment with/without work) in cases requiring interpreters in a court of first instance (2002-2011)
