Carlos Ghosn’s lawyer Takashi Takano claims that the bail conditions the former Nissan chairman is being held under constitute a breach of human rights.
Japan Today reports that Ghosn is forbidden from seeing wife Carole, including in the presence of lawyers, and can’t even talk to her on the phone. Prosecutors claim this measure was necessary to prevent evidence tampering.
“This is unfair,” Takano recently said. “It’s cruel and unusual.”
Takano has been fighting to remove this condition of Ghosn’s bail and has had appeals rejected by district and appeals courts. The Supreme Court also turned down his request last month but the lawyer says he will continue to file new petitions, asserting that the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the constitutionality or the human rights aspects of Ghosn’s bail.
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Lawyers recently filed a petition with the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, asserting that restricting Ghosn from seeing his wife represents a deprivation of fundamental human rights.
Ghosn was recently seen in court as part of a pre-trial session where both sides hand in evidence. Preparations for trials in Japan typically take months, and a trial date has yet to be set.
The former industry executive was arrested in November and charged with falsifying financial documents in reporting retirement compensation. He has also been charged with breach of trust in diverting Nissan funds towards personal investment losses.
Ghosn has long protested his innocence on all charges and attributed them to a coup by his former Nissan colleagues, but faces an uphill battle in being exonerated as the conviction rate in Japan is higher than 99 per cent.
