Japan's prisons were run according to the Prison Law of 1908, the product of an age in which the Emperor was sovereign, and the administrative directives whose primary intent was disciplinary. in 1982, the japanese government embarked upon a process of revising the Prison Law according to a self-declared policy of "codification, modernization and internationalization," A Penal Facility Bill was submitted to the national Diet(parliament). But this bill was entirely unacceptable because not only does it perpetuate the present rules and policies presently in force in prisons but has been presented as a package with a Police Detention Facility Bill which perpetuates the infamous Daiyo-kangoku, that is police station cells used as substitute prisons. The Japan Federation of Bar Associations(JFBA) had strongly opposed the two detention facility bills on the ground that they institutionalize the already prevailing order in Japan's penal institutions, and they are not in keeping with principles of codification, modernization and internationalization. Thus far, the legislation package had been presented unsuccessfully three times to the Diet. After the Nagoya-Prison case in 2003 the Ministry of Justice has been working to revise the Prison Law and submitted a bill on criminal institutes and the treatment of convicted inmates, which was designed to replace a part of the Prison Law, to the Diet on March 14, 2005. And the Bill finally cleared the Upper House on May 18, 2005. This act excluded the provisions pertaining to unconvicted inmates as the JFBA had been strongly urged. In addition, recommendations by the Administrative Reform Council were well reflected in the bill, even though there were several points remained to be improved. And during the deliberation in the Lower House, 4 items were modified, including that the new law should be reviewed in 5 years. With respect to the provisions of the Prison Law relating to unconvicted inmates including use of Daiyo-Kangoku, they remain as a law on the detention of crime suspects in criminal institutes until they are revised at next legislation. In this regard, the JFBA, the Ministry of Justice, and the National Police Agency are going to hold joint meetings.