Japan’s same-day execution law has prompted two death row prisoners to file a lawsuit, the Insider Sun reports.
The attorney for the men, Yutaca Ueda, is alleging that these same-day executions provide no time for an appeal, or for the men to mentally prepare to die.
“Death row prisoners live in fear every morning that that day will be there last,” said Ueda. “It’s extremely inhumane.”
In a 2009 Press release, Amnesty International Health care director James Walsh called it “cruel, inhuman and degrading.”
“Each day could be their last and the arrival of a prison officer with a death warrant would signal their execution within hours,” Walsh continued. “Some live like this year after year, sometimes for decades.”
According to the suit filed in the district court of Osaka, the men are asking for 22 million yen ($194,000 US dollars) in compensation.
The Japanese central government said that the same day executions are designed to prevent the men from suffering before their executions, according to Reuters.
Japan currently has 112 people on death row and hasn’t actually utilized its death penalty in two years. Prisoners die by hanging in Japan.
Japan is one of only a handful of industrialized nations that still have the death penalty. The U.S. and China also have it. But many of those nations haven’t performed executions in years.