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Japan Rights and Duties of Citizens
"The rights and duties of the people" are prominently
featured
in the postwar constitution. Altogether, thirty-one of its
103
articles are devoted to describing them in considerable
detail,
reflecting the commitment to "respect for the fundamental
human
rights" of the Potsdam Declaration. Although the Meiji
Constitution
had a section devoted to the "rights and duties of
subjects," which
guaranteed "liberty of speech, writing, publication,
public
meetings, and associations," these rights were granted
"within the
limits of law." Freedom of religious belief was allowed
"insofar as
it does not interfere with the duties of subjects" (all
Japanese
were required to acknowledge the emperor's divinity, and
those,
such as Christians, who refused to do so out of religious
conviction were accused of lèse-majesté).
Such freedoms are delineated in the postwar
constitution
without qualification. In addition, the later constitution
guarantees freedom of thought and conscience; academic
freedom; the
prohibition of discrimination based on race, creed, social
status,
or family origin; and a number of what could be called
welfare
rights: the right to "minimum standards of wholesome and
cultured
living"; the right to "equal education"; the "right and
obligation
to work" according to fixed standards of labor and wages;
and the
right of workers to organize. Equality of the sexes and
the right
of marriage based on mutual consent (in contrast to
arranged
marriage in the most traditional sense, in which families
decide on
the match) are also recognized. Limitations are placed on
personal
freedoms only insofar as they are not abused (Article 12)
or
interfere with public welfare (Article 13). The bestowal
of the
power of judicial review on the Supreme Court (Article 81)
is in
part meant to serve as a means of defending individual
rights from
infringement by public authorities
(see The Judicial System
, this
ch.).
Some United States origins of the constitution are
revealed in
the phraseology of Article 13, which states that the right
of the
people to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"
shall be
the "supreme consideration in legislation and other
governmental
affairs." It was with some awkwardness that such concepts
were
translated into Japanese. Yet the document goes further in
enumerating rights than do the United States and many
other Western
constitutions. For example, the article pertaining to
equality of
the sexes (Article 14) bans sexual (as well as racial,
religious,
and social) discrimination "in political, economic, or
social
relations" as clearly as the proposed United States equal
rights
amendment, which failed to be ratified during the 1970s
and 1980s.
Unlike their Japanese counterparts, United States
schoolteachers
and university professors are not protected by a special
provision
on academic freedom (Article 23). Instead, American
teaching and
research activities are subsumed under the more general
guarantee
of freedom of speech in the First Amendment.
Data as of January 1994
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