Tokyo, Japan: According to reports, a doctor who has committed a sexual crime in Japan is free to continue their medical practice for years before their medical license is suspended.
In Japan, a conviction of a sexual crime by a doctor doesn't automatically mean that the doctor’s license will be revoked. There is no such law in Japan that states an immediate suspension of a doctor while they are on trial for a sexual crime.
According to Japan Today, many doctors even commit the same crime twice before they are punished for the first criminal offence.
Between July 2013 and July 2026, an analysis of 48 cases around 10 recommendation rounds showed that final medical license sanctions in Japan take anywhere from 14 months to 13 years, the average time being 4 years following the guilty verdict.
According to the evaluation in 14 cases, the indecent crimes were mostly committed in workspaces or while the doctor was providing medical treatment to the patient. The time leading up to the sanctions could range anywhere from 14 months to over four and a half years. For most cases, the average comes up to three years and three months.
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Japan does not impose any restrictions on Doctors until the sanctions are finalised. There are no legal constraints on practising medicine till their medical license is suspended. Japan Today also mentions a case where a doctor was fined for being involved in a case of sexual intercourse with a minor, and before the suspension of his medical license, he had already committed another crime of child prostitution.
According to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, delays occur while gathering criminal records and interviewing doctors.
The japan government is currently deciding on whether they should add medical instituitions in the japanese DBS system, starting December 25, it will be mandatory for an employer to go through a national database of sexual offences before theu recruit people for jobs that requires dealing with children on a regular bases.
(Rh/ARC)