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Kenpō Kaisei to wa nani ka: Amerika Kaiken-shi kara kangaeru (What Are Constitutional Changes: A History of Constitutional Amendments and Other Constitutional Changes in the United States)

2017; Oxford University Press; Volume: 20; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ssjj/jyx010

1468-2680

Noboru Yanase,

American Constitutional Law and Politics

In Japan, the ongoing argument over amending the constitution is a controversial political issue that must be approached carefully. As those familiar with Japanese politics know, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the leading political party for most of the postwar era, has advocated revision of the constitution in its party platform. In this regard, the main priority of opposition parties has been to prevent the LDP from attaining a two-thirds majority in each house of the Diet in a national election. The two-thirds majority affects the procedure of constitutional amendment. Specifically, Article 96 of the Constitution of Japan stipulates that amendments to the Constitution must be initiated by the Diet through a concurring vote of two-thirds or more of the members of each house, and that ratification requires a majority affirmative vote in a popular referendum. Amending the Constitution of Japan (or rather, scrapping it altogether since it was originally drafted by foreigners and establishing a new constitution written by the Japanese) has remained a pipe dream of the conservatives for many years in the postwar era, although recently it has come onto the national agenda. In fact, the LDP presented two drafts of an entirely revised Constitution of Japan in November 2010 and April 2012, when it was an opposition party. Abe Shinzō, who has served as Japan’s Prime Minister as well as the President of the LDP since December 2012, strongly believes that the Constitution of Japan should be revised. Moreover, the ruling parties now (as of winter 2016) have enough seats in both houses of the Diet if they can gain the cooperation of the conservative party. Nowadays, at bookstores in Japan, there are many titles by conservatives who support constitutional amendment, alongside books from leftists who hold that the Constitution should never be changed. An overwhelming majority of Japanese constitutional scholars hold a negative view of constitutional amendment, and, recently, some of them have begun to express their opinions outside of the scholarly community.