What Is The Key Concept Of This Constitution?

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Investigation Questions
What is the key concept of this constitution? Is it similar with the ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’?
What was going on in Japan when the constitution was being written? How did it contribute to the constitution itself?
What was the main idea of the previous version before the current one? What is similar and what is different?
Who disagreed to the creation of the current version? Why and who were they?

Essay: The Constitution of Japan

‘Rule of law’ is basically a rule that states the law should govern the nation. The ‘Rule of law’ can be ensured by promises between people and this promise can be kept by a constitution in that state. A constitution is a document with important laws and …show more content…

There was a different version of a constitution before the most recent version. It was called the ‘Meiji Constitution’. This version was announced on February 11, 1889. Meiji was the ruler at that time in Japan. After Japan lost the World War 2, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) demanded them to change the constitution so the draft version was announced on November 3, 1946. The Japanese government wrote this constitution, yet it was reviewed by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), and the first draft was rejected by him. The constitution was basically based on the national sovereignty. The constitution consists 11 chapters with 103 articles in it. There is a specific article that states that Japan will deny war, they will not engage for war, and they will not possess army for war, so the Japanese constitution is also called the ‘Peace Constitution’. There are 3 basic beliefs or principles of this constitution; that is national sovereignty, respect for basic human rights, and pacifism. Although the typical author of this constitution was non-Japanese, they took the ‘Meiji Constitution’ and other drafts of the Japanese government in account when they published the new version of the …show more content…

This constitution was written to force Japan to surrender to the alliance leaders: Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, and Kai Shek Chiang after World War 2, and to remove the militaristic system and to replace it with liberal democracy. The Japan Emperor did not have any choice at that time because he lost all of his political powers. Furthermore, MacArthur intended to disturb the power concentrations by corrupting the distribution of education, economic beneficial companies, and the police. The best way to make all of this happen was to regulate Japan through a documented paper; which was the ‘Post-war Constitution’. This was the significant factor that contributed to the formation of the current version of the