Sovereignty and Democracy in the Japanese Constitution

Some revision of the present Japanese constitution probably cannot long be put off. Often referred to as the “MacArthur Constitution,” it is open to the charge that it needs to be brought into accord with Japan's restored status of independence.Although the immediate pressure for change is directed at the existing constitutional ban on rearmament, a more important change that can be anticipated will concern the position of the emperor in relation to the locus of sovereignty. This bears directly on the basic nature of the Japanese state, the central problem of the most bitter controversy in Japanese constitutional history. This problem, now dormant, is likely to be revived very soon, for the present constitution's treatment of the status of the emperor is highly vulnerable on substantive, procedural, and historical grounds.