An Examination of the Problems regarding the Legal Voting Age under the Recently Enacted Popular Voting Act

Abstract

The "Act on Procedures for the Amendment of the Constitution of Japan" (hereafter "the Act") was revised on June 13, 2014. There had been some confusion under the Act before the revision, as the Act had failed to clearly define whether the voting age was 18 or 20. The revision to the Act solved this problem, but several new issues arose, in its place: (1) whether adults in Article 15, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution should be treated the same way as persons who have reached the age of adulthood in the Civil Code, (2) whether the lowering of the age of adulthood in the Civil Code harms consumers, (3) whether or not the age of full suffrage should be lowered to 18, and (4) whether the age of voting rights should be treated in the same way as the age of full suffrage. These issues will be examined in this paper.