The Cultural (Re)Turn in Japanese Law Studies

Nottage, Luke

doi:10.26686/vuwlr.v39i4.5490

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 4 publications

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“…system to control the pace and direction of social control, or rational bargaining in the shadow of law provide more convincing explanations of how the Japanese engage with law. A more recent strain of scholarship seeks to temper the strength of these criticisms by re-establishing, at least partially, the enduring relevance of socio-cultural values to Japanese legal behaviour (West, 2005;Tanase, 2010;Nottage, 2009). Despite calls to find 'consensus' in this debate (Haley, 2002), this volume reopens the inquiry in light of new trends and different case studies.…”

Section: Themes: Japanese Law 'Of For and By The People'?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: who rules Japan?

Wolff¹,

Nottage²,

Anderson³

2015

Who Rules Japan?

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The first thing we do,' wrote Shakespeare in Henry VI, 'let's kill all the lawyers'. Four hundred years later, Japan embarked on a decidedly anti-Shakespearian strategy-the reinvention of Japan from a bureaucratic-led administrative state (eg, Upham, 1987) to a law-led judicial state. A central plank of this strategy, according to the 2001 report by the Justice System Reform Council ('Recommendations of the Justice System Reform Council-For a Justice System to Support Japan in the 21st Century, the Justice System Reform Council'), 1 was tripling the population of lawyers (bengoshi), judges and public prosecutors. 2 But the Council's reform blueprint went further than this. Aimed at bringing the legal system closer to the people (Foote, 2007), the Council proposed reconceiving legal education from generalist undergraduate degrees to specialist legal training at dedicated postgraduate law schools. 3 Ex ante 1 For an overview of Japan's legal system, see Abe and Nottage (2012). 2 To qualify as such, a candidate must pass a national bar examination (shiho shiken), complete a 12-month training programme (including secondments) at the Legal Research and Training Institute administered by the Supreme Court of Japan, and then successfully apply to the Supreme Court or the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) if the candidate wishes to start a career as a judge or prosecutor respectively. The number permitted to pass the examination each year is set essentially by the Court, the MoJ and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, and remains low even compared with other countries (such as France and Germany) which share the civil law tradition of a career judiciary and procuracy with quite tight state control over entry into the legal profession. For a comparative overview of Japan's 'gatekeeper' system for the legal profession, see generally Anderson and Ryan (2009). 3 Initially, only graduates from the new postgraduate law schools were entitled to sit for the bar examination. In 2011, however, the MoJ allowed candidates to bypass law school if they passed the Law School Equivalency Exam ('LSEE') (Bar Examination Act (Law No 140 of 1949), art 5). Despite

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Section: Themes: Japanese Law 'Of For and By The People'?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction: who rules Japan?

Wolff¹,

Nottage²,

Anderson³

2015

Who Rules Japan?

Self Cite

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Disaster Management: Socio-Legal and Asia-Pacific Perspectives

Nottage

Nasu

Butt

2013

Asia-Pacific Disaster Management

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Is Japan Ready for Enduring Powers? A Comparative Analysis of Enduring Powers Reform

Ryan¹

2014

Asian J. Comp. Law

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This article seeks to understand why the uptake of “third generation” enduring powers in Japan has been disappointing from the perspective of reformers who introduced the powers in 2000. In addition to questions about optimum design of this particular legal instrument, it is an opportunity to explore deeper questions about regulation and the role of law and the market in ageing, post-industrial societies such as Japan. First, the article explains the form that enduring powers take in Japan. Second, it presents statistics on the uptake of enduring powers. Third, the article presents possible reasons for this low uptake, including unsuitable social norms, a lack of awareness, excessive regulation, unresponsive doctrine, and entrenched judicial values. Finally, the article concludes that while these reasons all have explanatory value and are not easily disaggregated, comparative analysis presents some promising developments in Japan such as the growth in candidates to take on enduring powers who are regulated and organised through legal professions, civil society, local government, and the court system. At a deeper level, the article concludes that the fate of enduring powers turns not only on regulatory and doctrinal levers but also on the relative strengths within Japan’s continuing legal development of divergent views on the imposition of formal legal norms and market mechanisms upon relationships previously regulated by informal social norms or administrative decree.

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The Cultural (Re)Turn in Japanese Law Studies

Cited by 6 publications

References 4 publications

Introduction: who rules Japan?

Introduction: who rules Japan?

Disaster Management: Socio-Legal and Asia-Pacific Perspectives

Is Japan Ready for Enduring Powers? A Comparative Analysis of Enduring Powers Reform

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