A special panel of the Liberal Democratic Party has begun discussing whether the maximum age of minors to which the Juvenile Law is applied should be lowered to 17 from the current 19 — in line with the change in the minimum voting age from 20 to 18 sought in the proposed revision to the Public Offices Election Law. Members of the panel should not make hasty decisions, but instead carefully weigh related issues, since lowering the maximum age of minors covered by the Juvenile Law will have repercussions in a wide range of areas, including criminal trial of minors, the police's control of juvenile delinquents and child welfare.
The LDP panel should take time to study, for example, the situation of juvenile delinquencies and crimes, efforts made and measures taken at juvenile reformatories and other supportive institutions, and what schools and communities are doing to help juvenile delinquents. Discussions over the Juvenile Law do not need to keep pace with the proceedings on the amendment to the election law, which has been jointly submitted to the Diet by the LDP-led ruling coalition and several opposition parties, and is likely to be enacted in the current Diet session.
Heinous crimes committed by minors have triggered calls for changing the Juvenile Law so that more of them should be criminally prosecuted in the same manner as adults. Some LDP lawmakers say that if youths aged 18 and 19 are to be newly given the right to vote, they should bear social obligations correspondingly. But in discussing the issue the panel's members need to understand the basic aim of the Juvenile Law — which was introduced in 1948 — which is to help minors attain healthy growth and to take protective measures for juvenile delinquents to rectify their personality and adjust the environment they are in.