Zur aktuellen Reform des japanischen Sexualstrafrechts

Abstract

Japanese sexual criminal law was fundamentally revised and completely redesigned in 2017 and, above all, in 2023 due to strong criticism from society, which considered it insufficient for the protection of victims. The author presents the essential content of the new provisions of the Japanese Criminal Code and points out questions that remain open de lege lata and de lege ferenda. The protection of sexual self-determination in Japan is also ensured by several special criminal laws, the most important of which are also mentioned here. The author focuses on the fact that the 2023 reform dispensed with the fundamental requirements of violence or threat and explicitly standardized in law the mental state in which the victim must be at the time of the act, thereby negating consent. The legislature listed eight examples of actions and circumstances that could cause the victim to be in this state. This is intended to facilitate and stabilize the assessment of the existence of this condition. Separate from this, cases in which error renders the victim's consent invalid were standardized in a limited list. However, the treatment of cases of error could become the subject of debate again in the future. In addition, the reform of 2023 raised the age at which the victim is considered incapable of consent to 16, and for the age group of 13 to under 16, it was stipulated that sexual offenses only exist if the age difference between the victim and the perpetrator is at least five years. It remains to be seen whether this reform will prove effective in protecting minors.