Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law

Category: Supreme Court of Japan

  • Supreme Court of Japan rejects national anthem claims

    In a series of cases over this past month, each of the three benches of Japan’s Supreme Court ruled that it is constitutional for school principals to order teachers to stand and sing the national anthem (the Kimigayo) at school ceremonies.

  • The Japanese Election: Much Ado About Very Little?

    It’s rare for Japanese politics to get a lot of attention in the Western media, but this was admittedly no ordinary election. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)’s trouncing of the Liberal Democratic Party on August 30 made the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and so forth.

  • More on the election campaign against conservative justices in Japan

    As promised, Colin Jones has an interesting update on the public campaign to unseat a pair of sitting Supreme Court justices in the upcoming Japanese election. Thus far, in a nutshell, a retired Supreme Court justice is calling for the election defeat of two of his former colleagues in an advertising campaign that expressly uses…

  • When Supreme Court justices attack … each other

    Imagine if Justice O’Connor were to sponsor a full-page advertisement in the New York Times calling for the impeachment of her former colleague, Justice Kennedy, because she disagrees with the positions he has taken on some issue–say, voting rights. Hard to imagine, right?