Abhandlungen

Legal System and Legal Culture in Japan

Tsuyoshi Kinoshita

I.       Problems Presented

1.      Positivistic Approach versus Comparative Legal Culture
2.   Analysis of a Non-Litigious Society
3.   Is Japanese Law Part of the Civil Law System?
4.      Methodology of Comparative Legal Culture

II.      The Old Stratum Of Japanese Legal Ideas

1.      Indigenous Legal Ideas as Basso Ostinato of Japanese Law
2.      Influence of Chinese and Indian Legal Cultures on Japanese Law
3.      Influence of the European Civil Law System after the Meiji Restoration
4.      Influence of American Law after World War II

III.    Japanese People’s Attitude towards Law

1.      “Verrechtlichung” of the Traditional Japanese Society
2.      Reception of German Legal Model in order to Keep Traditional Values
3.      Japanisation of the Western Legal System by Extra-Legal Practices
4.      Endorsement of Indigenous Values by Case Law

IV.    Conclusion

1.      Cartesian Modern Western Law versus Postmodern Japanese Law
2.   “Legal Culture”
3.   “Legal System” and “Legal Family”
4.   Japanese Law: “Westernized”, but not “Western Law”

I.       Problems Presented

1.    Positivistic Approach versus Comparative Legal Culture

Léontin-Jean Constantinesco asserted in his legal essay that many scholars of comparative law consider modern Japanese law to belong to the Continental European law, that is, the civil law system, rather than to the circle of Eastern law.

Though they classify Japanese law under “Law in the Far East”, Konrad Zweigert and Hein Kötz in their introduction to comparative law pointed out that: