ABSTRACT
The international businessman can be assured that the Japanese legal system relating to business and commercial transactions is very near to its counterpart in any other democratic society. Japanese corporation law provides for several forms of business corporation. Primary distinction is made between corporations of limited liability and those of unlimited liability. One American lawyer observed that, in the actual application of the law, the Japanese court seemed to conduct itself in a manner significantly different from any US court. The restructuring of various laws was undertaken as a corollary of the democratic concept and the principle of the ‘rule of law’ introduced into Japan as part of the package containing the post-war Constitution. The awareness of the range of individual rights that are supported by law has become quite firmly established in the Japanese mentality. The criminal procedure law was restructured, for instance, after the pattern of Anglo-American criminal procedure, based on the concept of ‘due process’.
