WHEN 72-year-old Katsuyoshi Fujii shuffled into a Tokyo court on August 3rd with a rope tied around his waist, having confessed to stabbing a neighbour, his fate was all but sealed. Crime may be exceedingly low in Japan but anyone who is prosecuted almost inevitably ends up behind bars. The conviction rate for all prosecutions is 99% and confessions—made in police custody without a lawyer present—are almost as common. But on this occasion, for the first time since 1943, citizens from outside the legal profession stood in judgment of Mr Fujii, alongside professional judges. These “lay judges” not only help determine innocence or guilt but punishment too. They can even order the death penalty, though Mr Fujii got 15 years.

This is a big change for Japan, where, according to Takashi Maruta of Kansei Gakuin University, trials have long been “ceremonial”, with lots of legal jargon and little questioning by judges of police evidence. Citizen juries were suspended during the second world war because eligible jurors, men over 30, were away fighting. After a spate of executions of innocent people in the late 1980s, pressure mounted to bring civilians back into the courtroom. Some legal scholars such as Mr Maruta wanted American-style juries; what they got was a fudge in which lay judges sit alongside the professionals. The experiment will, however, be studied by other Asian countries such as South Korea and Taiwan that share aspects of Japan's system.

In a society of hierarchy and deference towards authority, laymen will rarely dare to argue with professional judges. Opinion polls suggest a large majority of Japanese people are loth even to take part in a trial.

That said, in Mr Fujii's case, the judges took the unusual step of cross-questioning the accused and the victim's son. More than 2,000 people showed up to get tickets for the trial. It may be an imperfect way to democratise the judicial process, but it looks like a step in the right direction. With Japan about to hold an election that could end 55 years of almost uninterrupted one-party rule, the more ordinary citizens can fill the power vacuum by taking part in public life, the better.