Toshinori Wada: 150 Years of Railways and Criminal Law Safety

2022/12/15

When discussing railway safety, focus is usually placed on vehicle technology and operating systems to prevent major accidents, but here I would like to focus on criminal law safety.

What is criminal law safety? It refers to things that are protected by the provision of penalties for dangerous acts. When acts that pose a danger to railways are widely subject to punishment, or are heavily punished and legally deterred, the railway is evaluated as being "safe in terms of criminal law."

Looking at Japan's railways from this perspective, it can be said that it has been 150 years of continuously increasing criminal law safety in stages. In other words, the punishment for acts that pose a danger to railways has become heavier over time, and the scope of punishment has continued to expand.

When the railway opened in 1872, there was no modern penal code yet, but the "Railway Crime Penalties" were established as a special law to address dangerous acts. However, the acts subject to punishment there included things like passengers with infectious diseases boarding, and acts that harmed the safety of train operations were not yet the focus. It is said that because steam locomotives were avoided by residents along the line as a source of danger due to the image of them scattering sparks, the first railway was built on an embankment slightly away from the coast. If that is the case, the railway itself was a dangerous existence to begin with, and the adversarial relationship between an "inherently safe railway" and "dangerous criminal acts that harm it" likely only appeared after the railway gained a certain level of social trust after opening.

In 1880, the first modern penal code was enacted. It included provisions to punish acts that cause danger to railway traffic. Setting up dangerous obstacles to the passage of trains was punishable by heavy imprisonment (equivalent to up to 5 years of imprisonment today), overturning a train as a result was punishable by life imprisonment (life imprisonment in Shimaji [= Hokkaido]), and if a person died as a result, the death penalty was imposed. Since the act of placing obstacles on the rails came to be suppressed by a 5-year prison sentence, the criminal law safety of railways increased significantly through this.

Subsequently, the current Penal Code was created in 1907. The aforementioned provisions of the 1880 Penal Code were basically carried over, and acts such as placing obstacles on the rails are punished as the crime of endangering traffic, but the upper limit of imprisonment was raised to 15 years. Since it had been 5 years of imprisonment until then, the penalties were significantly increased, further enhancing criminal law safety. Furthermore, in 2004, along with several other crimes, the upper limit for the crime of endangering traffic was raised to 20 years of imprisonment, which continues to the present day.

Now, turning our eyes to broad punishment rather than heavy punishment, criminal law safety is also on an expanding trend there.

The Railway Business Act, enacted in 1900 and still in effect today, punishes the act of throwing "tiles and stones" at trains. Although there is no danger comparable to placing obstacles on the rails, throwing hard objects with a certain weight like stones carries the risk of obstructing train operations, so it is subject to criminal punishment. Through this, the criminal law safety of railways is protected more broadly than the aforementioned crime of endangering traffic.

This scope of protection was expanded by the Act on Special Measures Concerning Punishment of Acts that Hinder the Safety of Train Operation on Shinkansen Railways (Shinkansen Special Measures Act). Enacted in 1964 to coincide with the opening of the Tokaido Shinkansen, this law made the act of throwing "objects" at a moving Shinkansen subject to punishment. In other words, for moving Shinkansen, the items thrown were not limited to "tiles and stones," ensuring criminal law safety more broadly. The law also punishes the act of placing objects within 3 meters of the center line of the Shinkansen tracks, which can also be said to expand criminal law safety.

The Shinkansen Special Measures Act applies to what the Nationwide Shinkansen Railway Development Act defines as Shinkansen railways, and the specific sections are determined by Cabinet Order. The so-called Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen, which opened in September this year, is described in this Cabinet Order as "the section connecting Takeo City and Nagasaki City among the Shinkansen railways connecting Fukuoka City and Nagasaki City," and has been subject to the Shinkansen Special Measures Act since its opening day.

What draws attention in future developments is the handling of the Chuo Shinkansen (Maglev), for which criminal law safety is likely to be even more required. First, will the geographical scope where placing objects is punished be wider than that of conventional Shinkansen? Second, will the conditions under which throwing objects is punished be more lenient than those for conventional Shinkansen? Third, in cases where danger to traffic is caused by placing obstacles on the tracks, the lower limit of the sentence for the crime of endangering traffic under the Penal Code is 2 years of imprisonment, but will this be applied as is, or will it be raised? Since the Maglev Shinkansen proceeds by floating with magnetic force, it is half like an airplane. And under current law, acts that cause danger to aviation are punished by the Act on Punishment of Acts to Endanger Aviation with imprisonment of 3 years or more, rather than 2 years.

In the next 150 years, I hope that sufficient criminal law safety will be ensured for the "soaring" railways.