Age of majority might be lowered

The Yomiuri Shimbun
Feb 4, 2008

Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama will bring up the issue of lowering the age of majority in the Civil Code--from the current age of 20 to 18--in the Legislative Council for deliberation on Feb. 13, it has been learned.
The council, an advisory body to the minister, is expected to take about a year to submit its findings in relation to lowering the legal age of majority to 18. The move is in line with the National Referendum Law, which, in principle, sets the minimum voting age at 18.
The law, passed in May 2007, stipulates procedures for revising the Constitution and will go into effect in 2010.
With 191 laws and ordinances, including the Public Offices Election Law, relating to the age of majority, the council's discussions on revising the Civil Code look likely to have a heavy influence on other laws.
Article 4 of the code stipulates: "The age of majority is when a person reaches the age of 20." This fundamental stipulation has not changed in the more than 100 years since its enactment.
Regarding minors, the code also stipulates that the consent of a legal representative is required when signing contracts, and the contract may be terminated without this consent; males may marry at 18 and females at 16 with parental consent; and a minor may not become a parent through adoption.
Some problems would arise from lowering the age of majority to 18. For example, should an 18-year-old male and 16-year-old female marry, only the female would require parental consent, and differences would arise in their treatment.
On the other hand, lowering the age at which a person is deemed to be an adult could have advantages such as stimulating economic activity among young people and encouraging social independence.
"I can't make any predictions as to what the Legislative Council will conclude," a senior ministry official said.
The council will select a wide range of people for a committee to debate lowering the age of majority. The committee will include not only legal scholars, but also sociologists, owners of small, midsized and large companies, and representatives of the press, family courts and high school teachers.
The council plans to focus debate on points such as the age that a person becomes a psychologically mature adult in modern-day society, and the age until which a person should be legally protected as a minor.
The National Referendum Law sets the minimum voting age in principle at 18, but this is not consistent with the current minimum voting age of 20.
For this reason the law, before its enforcement in 2010, has a supplementary provision to take necessary legislative measures, including examination of the Public Offices Election Law, the Civil Code and other laws and ordinances.
In light of this, a government exploratory committee set up to review articles relating to the age of majority decided in November to create panels in each of the ministries and agencies responsible for laws related to the lowering of the age of majority, before examining the benefits of such a move.
Each ministry and agency will monitor the council's discussions on the revision of the Civil Code, and ready themselves to examine the pros and cons of any changes to the age of majority.
(Feb. 4, 2008)