The court does not have the power to overturn the current marriage law
ELI5 how in Japan, ruling something unconstitutional doesn't overturn it?
this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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I believe this is because Japan works under a civil law system, which means that case law is subordinate to written law. This means that courts have much less power to impose their decisions upon the executive. Thus I think it is because the Japanese legislature never passed a law which explicitly allows for same sex marriage, the executive is allowed to deny these unions.
However this is based on a very surface level understanding of legal systems and I am by no means an expert. I find the language surrounding legal systems to be very confusing.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese high court ruled Thursday that denying same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and called for urgent government action to address the lack of any law allowing for such unions.
Government offices may continue to deny marriage status to same-sex couples unless the existing law is revised to include LGBTQ+ couples, or a new law is enacted that allows for other types of unions.
But the Tokyo District Court ruling was only a partial victory for Japan’s LGBTQ+ community calling for equal marriage rights, as it doesn’t change or overturn the current civil union law that describes marriage as between a man and a woman.
Five previous court decisions in various districts said Japan’s policy of denying same-sex marriage is either unconstitutional or nearly so.
However, unlike the Sapporo ruling, none of the low-level courts clearly deemed the existing marriage law unconstitutional.
Japan is the only member of the Group of Seven nations that still excludes same-sex couples from the right to legally marry and receive spousal benefits.
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