Verfassungsentwicklung I

Ideas about constitutional law have been exchanged intensively between Japan and Germany for a long time. Japanese participants in this debate have tended to reference the German tradition of a constitutional state operationalised by the judiciary and to use it as a yardstick for their own legal order. Yet one must not overlook the fact that Japanese and German constitutions have engendered and developed distinct theoretical concepts and practical forms of implementation. This is due in no small part to the radically different systems of constitutional judiciary and varying practices of constitutional change in these two countries. Constitutional scholars hailing from thirteen Japanese and twelve German faculties of law discussed and clarified commonalities, differences and problems in developing constitutional law during their 2015 round of dialogue in Tokyo.