MODERN AMERICAN AND JAPANESE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: DEFINING THE PATHS AND INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN TWO LINKED CONSITITUTIONS

During the post-war occupation era in Japan, an entire new Constitution mimicking the Americans’ was amended on to the Meiji constitution by the occupying Allied powers. Important American principles and institutions like religious freedom and the Supreme Court were created for the Japanese. However, despite all of the similarities in the organization of the new Japanese judicial system, the religious jurisprudence in America and Japan took wildly different paths in subsequent years. Looking at American case law and religion-based controversies in Japan, the two countries' different judicial responses to religious controversies will be explored. Additionally, the different hypotheses for the cause of this divergence will be evaluated in order to best understand why the divergence occurred.