The Supreme Court of Japan, showcasing its tendency of extreme deference to the executive, overturned a lower court decision regarding criminal law. The lower court decision had held that, given the plaintiff's background in a political organization, it could not be said that the government manifestly lacked a reason to arrest him subsequent to his refusing five times to be interrogated voluntarily. The plaintiff had cited the ICCPR in its arguments, but the Court did not respond to this in its very short opinion. The Court did not even give a reason for failing to deal with the plaintiff's claims. Although this practice of failing to deal with a claim when rejecting it is not unusual in Japanese jurisprudence, the Supreme Court seemed to be sending a signal to lower courts, who had before then shown a tendency to broaden the scope of individuals' rights in Japan through recognition of rights provided in the ICCPR. The signal was that the Supreme Court would not necessarily be quick to broaden such rights, even if the judiciary as a whole seemed to be, and that international law (here, the ICCPR) would not necessarily concern the Court if it wanted to rule a particular way.

(found in ''Incomplete Revolutions and Not So Alien Transplants: the Japanese Constitution and Human Rights'' by Sylvia Brown Hamano, 1 U. PA. J. CONST. L. 415, 480)