Waseda University Institute of Comparative Law

     Japanese society has undergone numerous changes since the middle of the 1990s to the present day. The country's legal system, which forms part of Japanese society, has also undergone quite substantial changes over the last ten years. Many of these changes are still ongoing, and their future remains uncertain.

     Until the middle of the 1990s, the Japanese legal system (with a few exceptions) had undergone no substantial changes since the end of American occupation just after the end of World War II. Although new laws were occasionally adopted during that time, substantial modifications to major codes such as the civil code, the criminal code and the commercial code were rare. Similarly, there had been no changes in judicial institutions and the legal profession.
     This tranquility, however, broke down around the middle of the 1990s. In that decade, the process of globalization became more visible to Japanese people with the end of the cold war. On the other hand, Japan was struggling to free itself from a long-lasting economic recession. These factors created the motivation for change within Japanese people. The process of substantially amending major legal codes began around the middle of the 1990s, and as a result it is now difficult to find any major legislation that has not been modified in the past ten years. Such legislative work seems to be linked to changes in Japan's social structure.
     Overall legislation on one hand, and the justice system (composed of judicial institutions and the legal profession) on the other, are two sides of the same coin that is the legal system. Accordingly, a change in one side must necessarily accompany an adjustment in the other side, and the fact that the Japanese justice system had been characterized by a number of problems for some time further promoted such change.

     The ongoing reform of the justice system is based on recommendations issued by the Justice System Reform Council in 2001. This council was established in July 1999 under the Prime Minister's Cabinet; composed of 13 members, it was the key organization in justice system reform. After approximately two years of intensive discussions, the Reform Council issued its final report in June of 2001. In reality, amendments to major codes and the reform of the justice system alike have been progressing side by side since the end of the 1990s.