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Aizawa v. Japan 27 KEISH u 265 (Sup. Ct., G.B., Apr. 4, 1973) is a landmark case in Japanese criminal law. The case marks the first time that an act of the national legislature was determined to be invalid by the Supreme Court of Japan on the grounds that it violated a provision of the Japanese constitution.

Origin of the case
Chiyo Aizawa (相沢 チヨ) was a Japanese woman who was arrested for murdering her father by strangulation on October 5, 1968. Aizawa was charged with patricide. Under Japanese law as it existed at the time of the offense, patricide was a separate type of homicide that was eligible to be punished even more severely than muder of an unrelated person. If convicted, the only authorized punishments for patricide were death, or life imprisonment. Aizawa confessed to the killing, but indicated that she felt that she was driven to kill her father because she felt that her freedom and safety were at stake. .

The police investigation her father's death revealed that many of the neighbors believed that Aizawa's father had publically indentified Aizawa as his wife rather than as his daugher. Neighbors who were questioned indicated that they thought that Aizawa and her father were married. The police investigated futher, and found that that Aizawa’s three children had been sired by her father, and that Aizawa had suffered years of sexual abuse. Ultimately, the police discovered that Aizawa's father first raped her at age 14, and persistently abused her over the next 15 years. Aizawa had become pregnant by her father a total of 11 times. She carried five babies to term, although only two of her children survived infancy. The remaining six pregnancies were aborted, and eventually Aizawa was sterilized to prevent further pregnancy. Aizawa’s mother had fled from her father several years previously, leaving Aizawa and her younger siblings under her father’s control. Aizawa assumed the role of her father’s spouse, to the point that outside observers believed that Aizawa was married to her father rather than her daughter. Aizawa worked outside the home. She became acquainted with a man, and and began a romantic relationship with a co-worker. Aizawa’s father learned of the relationship, he imprisoned her within the home. Aizawa stated that he threatened to kill the family's children. Aizawa then strangled her father.

Aizawa stood trial on the charge of patricide. She was convicted of patricide, but the trial court declined to sentence her according to the law. Pointing to the unusual and compelling mitigating circumstances, the court suspended her prison sentence. The trial court found that the penalty provision of section 200 of the criminal code, which mandated the stricter penalty, violated the Constitution of Japan, because it provided for a harsher penalty for those who murdered a parent than those who murdered another person. Since the trial court found a section of the penal code to be unconstitutional, the prosecution appealed the trial court’s decision. The intermediate appeallate court also followed the trial court’s ruling, and an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of Japan.

The Supreme Court had not always had the power to review the legality of the acts of other branches of the government. It received the power of judicial review The Supreme Court was granted the power of judicial review to review actions of the other branches of government to ensure that they actions were constitutional. The Court never had used this power to invalidate a legislative act, although it was established by the constitution of 1945.

The issues presented to the court were whether a provision of the Constitution that provided “All people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin” required that the section of the penal code that provided for a harsher punishment for those convicted of patricide than those convicted on other homicide. A majority of the Court ruled that the fact that provision of the constitution did apply to section of the penal code in question, but that the law would be invalidated only if there were no reasonable grounds for the disparate sentences. The Court then determined that the decision to treat patricide more severely than other forms of homicide was not reasonable on its face. However, the Court found that the difference in the sentence that could be imposed for patricide was so different from the sentence that was commonly imposed for other types of homicide as to be disproportionate to any reasonable interest society had in distinguishing between the two crimes. Therefore, provision 200 was declared unconstitutional.

Aizawa’s conviction stood, however, the effect of the court ruling was that she was released from prison after serving two years and six months. She had three years of the sentence suspended.

Effect of the ruling
The impact of the ruling was swift. On April 19, 1973, some two weeks after the decision, those who had been convicted under section 200 of the penal code were granted amnesty and released from prison by the Japanese Ministry of Justice. Enforcement of the section was suspended, and in 1995, it was abolished as a separate provision of the criminal code. The case marks the first time that the Supreme Court used its power of judicial review, under section 81 of the constitution, to hold a law that had been passed by the national legislature was unconstitutional. The case