A comparative legal study of constitution-compatible interpretation

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26380033
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Public law
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: DOI Masakazu 京都大学, 法学研究科, 教授 (70243003)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 憲法適合的解釈 / 合憲解釈 / 憲法判断の方法 / 憲法訴訟

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The achievements of this study are as follows: First, we conducted a comparative legal research on the judicial precedents and academic theories concerning constitution-compatible interpretation in the United States, Canada, France and Germany, and convention-compatible interpretation in the UK. We have made it clear that constitutional-compatible interpretation is widely shared as the cardinal principle of statutory construction, and then elaborately portrayed the differences among these countries of the way how courts actually applied this method.
Secondly, based on that research, we precisely analyzed the Supreme Court precedents and academic theories in Japan, and clarified the conception of "constitutional-compatible interpretation", its merits and demerits, conditions on which such a method can be constitutionally applied, and finally, the differences from the severability, “unconstitutional as applied” approach and other methods how to declare unconstitutionality of statutes.

Free Research Field

憲法学