Constitutional Law – Page 3

Media Should Stop Legitimizing Abe’s Article 9 ‘Reinterpretation’

April 24, 2021June 13, 2015 by Craig Martin

(Published in The Japan Times, Jun. 13, 2015).

Three of Japan’s preeminent constitutional law scholars testified on June 4 that the government’s recently tabled national security bills were unconstitutional. The proposed legislation is intended to implement the Cabinet resolution that purports to “reinterpret” the war-renouncing provision of the Constitution. The legal scholars’ testimony was greeted with apparent surprise in the media, as though it had not occurred to anyone until that moment that the draft bills might be unconstitutional.

The media reporting on the so-called reinterpretation has reflected a profound misunderstanding of the constitutional effect of the Cabinet resolution ever since it was issued last summer. The press has typically stated that the meaning of Article 9 had been “changed” or “revised” by the Cabinet resolution. That is simply wrong as a matter of law. It is important that the media understand that the Constitution was not amended or changed in any way by the Cabinet resolution, and that laws must continue to be judged against long established interpretations of Article 9. Otherwise, misleading and mistaken reporting on the issue could contribute to making an illegitimate attempt at reinterpretation a de facto amendment.

Undermining the Rule of Law – Tokyo Shinbun Interview

April 24, 2021July 1, 2014 by Craig Martin

(Interview with Yoichi Takeuchi, in the Tokyo Shinbun, Jun. 30, 2014)

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How and Why Japan Should Amend its War-Renouncing Article 9

April 24, 2021August 5, 2012 by Craig Martin

(Published in The Japan Times, Aug. 4, 2012)

The pressure is mounting to either amend Article 9, the war-renouncing provision of Japan’s Constitution, or to increasingly disregard it and so make it irrelevant. In April the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) published its proposal for amending the Constitution, and the dangers it posed for Article 9 was analyzed here on June 6 (“LDP’s dangerous proposals for amending antiwar article”). But the response to such amendment proposals by the supporters of Article 9 continues to be one of complete denial — that is, a categorical argument that Article 9 should not be amended at all.

This position is misguided. There are both strategic and legal reasons why the left must develop realistic alternative amendment proposals that would preserve and strengthen the core elements of the provision, but eliminate those elements that undermine it. In a chapter in the book “A Time for Change? Japan’s ‘Peace’ Constitution at 65,” published last month by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars (the chapter is available online: http://bit.ly/MWGF8T), I explain why Article 9 should be amended, and provide draft language that can serve as a basis for beginning a discussion on alternate amendment proposals.

Flat out rejection of any and all possible amendments to Article 9 is dangerous as a strategic matter. The national security environment of Japan has shifted in the last couple of decades, with the emergence of a nuclear-armed North Korea, and the growing military strength of China. In addition to these perceived threats, there is an increasing sense that Japan should be doing more to fulfill its international responsibilities. Moreover, the Japanese Self-Defense Force (SDF) has participated in non-combat roles in such conflicts as Afghanistan and Iraq with no adverse consequences.

A Turning Point in Japan For Equality Rights?

April 24, 2021June 12, 2009 by Craig Martin

(Initially published in the Japan Times, June 10, 2009)

A year ago this week, the Supreme Court of Japan issued a judgment that struck down a clause in the Nationality Act as being a violation of the Constitution. There are good reasons for everyone in Japan to celebrate that decision. While little noted outside of specialized legal journals at the time, the decision may have been the beginning of a more robust judicial protection of the right to equality in Japan.

The Nationality Act judgment was, of course, hailed as an historic decision — in part because it was only the eighth time the Supreme Court has struck down a law as unconstitutional; and in part because it would extend the benefits of nationality to tens of thousands of children born in Japan to Japanese fathers and foreign mothers who were not married. But much less noticed were the reasons of the court, and what that analysis meant for the right to equality itself.

Prior to this case, the courts of Japan employed a simplistic “reasonableness” test to determine if discrimination constituted a violation of the right to equality enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution.