2. Determination

A. When considering the difference between the original court and the appellate court’s method of evaluating the credibility of a statement made by a witness in light of the contents of the original judgment and the evidence duly examined in the original judgment, or there are exceptional cases where it is obviously unreasonable to maintain the original court’s decision as to the credibility of a statement made by the witness in the original judgment in light of the evidence examination conducted by the original court and the evidence duly examined in the original court, unless there are special circumstances where it is clearly erroneous to deem that the lower court’s determination on the credibility of a statement made by the witness in the original judgment is clearly erroneous, or where it is obviously unreasonable to maintain the original court’s decision on the credibility of a statement made by the witness in the appellate court based on the evidence examination conducted by the time of closing argument in the appellate court, the appellate court should not reverse without permission the lower court’s decision on the ground that the lower court’s determination on the credibility of a statement made by the witness in the original judgment is different from the appellate court’s decision (see, e.g., Supreme Court Decision 2011Do5312).

There should be reasonable grounds to believe that the argument leading to fact-finding is not against logical and empirical rules, and that it is remarkably unfair to maintain the judgment as it is, and without such exceptional circumstances, the fact-finding of the first instance court.