Changing the Constitution
Unlike Japan, England does not have a single, written constitution.
What we have is a collection of laws and statutes, which have accumulated through our history, and a collection of ‘unwritten laws’ which are passed down through our parliamentary and legal institutions. As such, ‘changing the constitution’ is a rather ambiguous phrase. The Constitution - insofar as it can be said to exist at all - is part of the legal framework of the country and can be changed or added to as easily as any law can be changed or any new law can be created. Our constitution is the sum of our legal and parliamentary traditions.
In Japan, the Constitution stands over and above the rest of the legal framework - a position it was placed in by the American Occupation Government after World War II. This is one of the reasons why a great fuss is going to be kicked up over the way in which Mr.Abe’s government intends to push through revisions to various parts of the document - enshrined in the Japanese constitution is the idea that it can only be revised on the authority of ‘The People’. In other words, not the Diet, nor the Judges, nor the Politicians. The People have to be consulted and they must be seen to ‘make the decisions’.
Ironically in a democratic country, this is really a very bothersome process for Japan’s present leaders, who are keen to pull Japan in a certain direction, but have to be seen to follow a constitutionally-approved path in doing so. They must fear that their true intentions will be reduced by the democratic process to some lowest common denominator which is no better than the present document for their purposes.
Nevertheless, this is an important step in Japan’s post-war development, and the people must be consulted and the issues brought out into the open - the leaders should begin a process of education, consultation and free discussion that will give people a chance to get to grips with the Big Question of what Japan should be aiming for in the 21st century. As anyone can see, this is a momentous issue and it should see ordinary people brought en masse into the political process.
bamboo4 wrote:
In England, its constitution is known as soft constitution whereas the constutions of such countries as Japan and the United States are known as hard constitution. Accordingly, the procedures for amending such constitution is somewhat different between those two types of constitutions as the basic law of the nation.
Even in England, however, there is a corpus of statutory laws that forms the core of its constitutional framework, such as the Bill of Rights of 1688/1689, the Act of Settlement of 1700, the Parliament Acts of 1911 & 1949, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, etc. Such being the case, as a country which adheres to the parliamentary spremacy principles, there being no concept of any law that is placed above the parliament, England does not know any specific procedure to change ts “Constitution”.
In contrast, in case of Japan which has its constitution as the supreme law to any act of parliament, it must have a set procedures for the purpose of amending its constitution. Japan’s constitution has been in effect for 60 years, and we have not had any law spelling out the manner in which its constitution can be changed. Having operated for 60 years without one, I personally do not see any rush in creating one at this time.
Howver, Abe cabinet, principally because Shinzo Abe wants to set his footprint in the history as a man who changed the Japanese constitution, wants to get that accomplished within the tenure of that cabinet. One of the reason for such remodel attempt is said to be that the present constitution of Japan was forced upon the Japanese by the American occupation forces, i.e., Genral Douglas McArthur and his cohorts, specifically the provisions of Article 9 which denounces war. In this score, there exist conflicting theories, one of which claims that it was in fact proposed by Prime Minister Shidehara and the occupation forces bought that idea. In any event, that part of the history is irrelevant now.
What is relevant is the recent bill which the Abe cabinet dreamed up and hastily bulldozed through the House of Representatives recently. The bill is now before the House of Councillors for deliberation, but it is clear that the Libeal Democrats would force that bill through that house also to enact it into a law.
In addition to being premature, the law, when enacted, would contain flaws galore. While it makes those 18 year old and older eligible to vote (in contrast to 20), it does not have any quorum requirement. It also does not count those blanc votes, and only count those which explicitly indicated yea or nay to a specific proposal. It is quite possible that there are many voters who would not clearly indicate their ascent or dissent to a proposal, but who would find it appropriate to vote blanc, but this law would regard them as non-existent. All this means that an amendment to the constitution could be voted into effect by a handful of people which may constitute less than 20 or 15 percent of the total populace eligible to vote.
Can Japanese people really intend to take up such important national agenda as amendment of its constitution under that kind of setup? Does this National Referendum Law represent the true intent of the Japanese people in dealing with such critical issues as amendment of Article 9 of the present constitution which denounces war and which immensely helped Japan during its post-WW II recovery?
Yes, as you say ben-san, the workings of democracy tends to settle matters at the lowest common denominator, but I personally doubt and fear that the National Refrendum Bill does not even accomplish that.
Although it would be about three years before the actual proposal for amendment of the constitution can be made and this referendum law would kick in, and before that is done, I certainly would expect that there would be vox populi coming into right the situation, but there is no guarantee that would happen.
Posted on 16-Apr-07 at 11:40 pm | Permalink
bamboo4 wrote:
A sequel to my last comment, it is reported that Asahi Shimbun’s telephone poll on April 14 & 15 revealed that 80% of those polled indicated that a quorum (i.e., certain percentage of the total eligible voters actually vote to make the referendum valid) would be needed in the National Referendum Bill.
Never underestimate the force of vox populi.
Posted on 18-Apr-07 at 7:08 am | Permalink