{"id":777042189,"date":"2026-05-14T08:26:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777042189"},"modified":"2026-05-14T08:55:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T11:55:00","slug":"japan-supreme-court-moves-to-impeach-judge-over-alleged-online-gambling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/japan-supreme-court-moves-to-impeach-judge-over-alleged-online-gambling","title":{"rendered":"Japan Supreme Court moves to impeach judge over alleged online gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Authorities allege the judge accessed an online casino more than 60,000 times over several months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Japan.- The Supreme Court of Japan<\/strong> has asked a parliamentary commission to begin procedures that could lead to the dismissal of a serving judge accused of gambling online. Akifumi Morimoto<\/strong>, a 52-year-old judge serving at a court in Niigata, is facing allegations of repeatedly accessing an online casino platform through his mobile devices while living in Akita Prefecture in 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prosecutors in Akita Prefecture filed charges against Morimoto in April. Authorities allege he accessed the service more than 60,000 times over several months, playing casino games such as baccarat. If the commission proceeds with the request, the matter could be referred to Japan\u2019s Judge Impeachment Court<\/strong>, which would decide whether he should be removed from office. That would be the first time a sitting judge is removed through impeachment proceedings over alleged online gambling activity in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Masamichi Itatsu<\/strong>, head of the Supreme Court\u2019s Personnel Affairs Bureau<\/strong>, said: \u201cIt is very regrettable that we had to take procedures to seek the dismissal of an active judge. We will work to regain public trust in judges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t\t\tSee also:<\/span><\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tSee also:<\/span> Japan sees rise in online gambling enforcement cases<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Authorities allege the judge accessed an online casino more than 60,000 times over several months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2395,"featured_media":14645,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"","focusai_entities":"","focusai_location":"","focusai_target_profile":"","focusai_suggestions":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,154],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-777042189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-legislation-news","tag-casino"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777042189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777042189"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777042189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777042197,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777042189\/revisions\/777042197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777042189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777042189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777042189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}