Here at Law of the Land, I try to share "the Japanese law experience" with general readers. Today's experience is called "The Frustration of Reading Supreme Court Decisions" and takes as examples two of the most significant decisions of 2015: one on a law requiring spouses to have the same surname, the other addressing a six-month prohibition on remarriage after marital dissolution that only applies to women.

Critiquing the judgment of a nation's top court may seem pretentious, but to be clear, the goal is not to suggest there is some "better" (i.e., "Western") way of doing things. Rather, I am merely trying to share the angst of realizing that, after cutting through the mystifying veil of legalese, tortuous prose, circular reasoning and conclusory statements presented as fact, supposedly significant judicial decisions can seem surprisingly light on substance.

The plaintiffs in both cases asserted violations of Articles 14 and 24 of the Constitution. In the surnames case, an Article 13 violation was also alleged (see sidebar for relevant sections).