Constitutional Amendment as a Political Compensation for Democratic Defect: Prime Minster Shinzo Abe’s Challenge and its Paradoxical Effects

Every constitutional projects are products of context because constitutional law is law of the nation. Political leaders also have their own dreams, interests and fetters of communities or family. Those peculiar traits make constitutional project contextual. However, I would draw not contextual concerns but more universal lessons from what’s going on in Japan around Prime Minister Abe’s constitutional amendment. These years, a number of political crises happened under the Abe administration. Every single one of these crises would lead to resignation of Ministers or Prime Minister if they happened before. But the Abe administration is still powerful. Why? It is partially because of a force of numbers he got in the Diet. On the other side, his project of constitutional amendment itself shall be another source of his power. Democratic defect of the administration probably would make up its illegitimacy by touching the highest source of legitimacy of the nation, the Constitution of Japan.