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46 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 159 (2017-2018)
Reflection of Public Interest in the Japanese Constitution: Constitutional Amendment

handle is hein.journals/denilp46 and id is 173 raw text is: REFLECTION OF PUBLIC INTEREST IN THE JAPANESE CONSTITUTION: CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT YUICHIRo Tsuji* Approximately seventy years have passed since the establishment of the Japanese Constitution. After obtaining majority seats in the House of Representatives in 2016, the coalition government started discussing an amendment to the Constitution. If these discussions are fruitful, it would be the first time in history that the Constitution is amended. Several proposals have been made to amend the Constitution; one is concerned with emphasizing public interest by unifying the people. This Article first reviews the proposed amendments to the Japanese Constitution drafted by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 2012. Next, this Article analyzes the academic theories concerning public welfare under the current Constitution. Japanese constitutional scholars have persistently studied the concept of public welfare. Some scholars believe the word liberty is associated with the equal treatment of people irrespective of their life choices, while others interpret it as condoning selfishness. The theories of American philosophers John Rawls and Michael Sandel may help inform our understanding of the Japanese Constitution. Their theories are imported into Japanese constitutional studies to protect human rights under the rule of law. Japanese constitutional scholars, meanwhile, are afraid that the amendment proposals of political parties neglect human dignity in the name of public interest and drift toward totalitarianism. Third, this Article reviews the term public welfare as it appeared in the amendment process of the current Constitution because the word lacked consistency in both intent and meaning in various articles of the Constitution. Finally, this Article examines the role of the judiciary in effectuating the rule of law and protecting diversity. To this end, the Article discusses several well-known decisions by the Japanese judiciary that demonstrate how vital the role of the judiciary is in protecting individual rights in order to unite people with diferent ideas, beliefs, and perspectives. * Yuichiro Tsuji, Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Science (legal major) at the University of Tsukuba; J.S.D University of California, Berkeley; LL.M. University of California, Berkeley; and Master of Law, Kyoto University. For a discussion on amendment of constitution and Japanese judicial system, see Yuichiro Tsuji, Constitutional Law Court in Japan, 66 TSUKUBA J. OF L. & POL. 65 (2016). The author would like to thank the editors of Denver Journal of International Law & Policy for their helpful advice in publishing this Article. 159

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