The Judicialization of Japanese Politics?

Are Japan’s politics becoming judicialized? Certainly Japan has been somewhat of an outlier among advanced industrial democracies, in which scholars have documented a decisive trend toward greater scope and authority for judicial decision-making (Tate and Vallinder, 1995; Hirschl 2008). National and supranational courts in North America and Europe regularly decide the largest political and social questions of the day—abortion, gay marriage, the status of religion, even who can take power—questions that Japan’s Supreme Court has studiously avoided. Closer to home, the Korean and Taiwanese constitutional courts routinely decide major issues of social policy. Japan’s courts seem much more quiescent.