The Supreme Court of Japan

When I•CON was launched, the editors decided to include a separate department for profiles of constitutional courts. We knew that our articles, recent developments, and other parts of the journal would inevitably include discussions of constitutional courts, but we singled out these courts for special attention because we believed that essays focusing directly on them would add an important dimension to our work. Our hopes were gratified when Burt Neuborne produced a penetrating analysis of the Supreme Court of India in our first volume.1 This profile was preceded by a short explanation by Neuborne and Lorraine Weinrib of the reasons for establishing constitutional court profiles as a separate department.2 Lynn Berat carried the genre forward in her provocative look at the Constitutional Court of South Africa.3 We recognized from the beginning that an understanding of some constitutional courts would be deepened if several authors approached them from different perspectives. In this issue, I•CON presents its first multipart court profile—on the Supreme Court of Japan. Yasuo Hasebe combines an overview of the Japanese Supreme Court with a close look at the Japanese electoral system and economic freedoms, drawing important general insights from particular cases.4 Norikazu Kawagishi takes a historical perspective, describing the complex events whereby judicial review was established in Japan through the Constitution drafted and approved during the American occupation of Japan following World War II.5 The article also explains the role of the legislature and of the Supreme Court itself in the process, with particular reference to the status of the tenno (emperor) and the prerogatives of royalty. Finally, Shigenori Matsui addresses an important constitutional issue, the voting rights of Japanese living abroad, reviewing the relevant court decisions and describing the legislative aftermath that definitively disposed of the issue.6 The sequence is a striking example of the interplay between the judiciary and legislature, a key issue in many jurisdictions. Taken together, the three articles present a history, an overview, and a snapshot of contemporary Japan's Supreme Court, as it plays an increasingly important role in the governance of Japanese society.