일본소년법 적용연령(상한기준) 인하에 대한 일본 학계의 반대성명과 시사점 = Japan’s opposition debate on lowering the application age of Juvenile Law and its implications

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In June 2015, Japan enabled people above the age of 18 to vote while they had age over 20 could before, by legal establishment of 「Partial Amendment to Public Official Election Act」. This act regulates to take necessary legislative measures by reviewing civil law(1896, article 89), juvenile law(1948, article 168), and other legislation’s regulation according to the article 11 of the supplementary provision. And so, Ministry of Justice(Japan) submitted Civil Law Amendment, which includes lowering the age requirement of adult hood by under 20 to under 18, to a National Assembly, which then passed by the House of Representatives in March 13, 2018 waiting to be enforced, and actively reviewing juvenile law to be applied under the age of 18 rather than 20.
Discussion related to the amendment of juvenile law is always been raised after the serious incident by a juvenile. They say that lowering the age of being an adult hood that relates to the juvenile law is due to the submitting of Public Official Election Act to National Assembly. But in fact, incident of murdering first year middle school boy by some 18 year olds that occurred in Kawasaki(川崎) is the real reason. Whenever such serious juvenile incidents occur, medias are continually raising opinions that juvenile law is unfit to present situations, and they strongly insist to amend juvenile law.
However, 114 Japan researchers of criminal law and juvenile law announced “Statement of Criminal Law Researcher’s Oppositions to the Proposal of Lowering the Limit of Application Regarding the Juvenile Law”(少年法適用対象年齢の引下げに反対する刑事法研究者の声明) to strongly oppose lowering the limit of application in juvenile law.
Recent arguments about amendment and disposal of juvenile law in South Korea is, as it's mentioned earlier in introduction, related to a incidents of serious crime by juvenile. This paper handles with examinations of main basis of arguments and opinions about Japan academia’s opposition statement, and implications regarding South Korea’s disposal and amendment of juvenile law.