Japanese legal reception and the transformation of legal culture

Author: Huaxia et al.
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Features: Legal reception, also known as legal transplantation, is a primary form of exchange between different legal systems, legal institutions, and legal cultures. Traces of legal reception can be found to varying degrees in the legal development histories of many countries. Therefore, legal reception has not only become one of the subjects of scholarly attention but also a major means for many countries to establish and improve their legal systems. Japan has long been renowned for its ability to absorb the strengths of others, a characteristic that is also reflected in its attitude toward legal systems and legal cultures. Ancient Japan extensively adopted the legal systems and legal thoughts of China, leading to the adoption of the Ritsuryō system from China. The fusion of the Ritsuryō system with the ruling habits of Japanese samurai formed the Bushidō system, which constituted the main legal tradition in Japan before the modern era. During the Meiji Restoration, Japan comprehensively and generally adopted Western law, primarily German and French law, under the influence of the "Detachment from Asia and Embrace of Europe" ideology. This resulted in a complete structural or formal break with traditional legal systems, giving Japanese law an appearance identical to Western law. After World War II, Japan began to adopt American law in various fields, including the constitution, adding many American legal elements to the modern Japanese law based on the continental European legal system. From this perspective, one could say that the legal history of Japan is a history of legal reception. Japan's three successful instances of legal reception have not only enriched the research material on legal reception but also expanded the scope of studying legal reception issues by adopting the laws of different legal systems and legal cultures. More importantly, Japan's relatively successful legal reception can provide many practical experiences and lessons for countries that hope to improve their legal systems by the "essence" of legal systems or legal cultures from other nations. This holds even greater practical significance for our country, which shares the same language and ethnicity as Japan and emphasizes the absorption and reference of foreign advanced experiences in the construction and improvement of the socialist legal system. For this reason, since the mid-1990s, the Comparative Law Research Institute of China University of Political Science and Law and the Comparative Japanese Law Research Institute of Chuo University in Japan, with the support of the Japan Foundation for International Exchange, have successively established four joint research projects on related topics, conducted joint research, and achieved certain results.