Tokyo, June 20 (IANS): The minimum voting age in Japan has been lowered from 20 to 18 as a revised national referendum law took effect Friday.
According to Japanese law, a revision of the constitution needs to be initiated with the support of at least two-thirds of the lawmakers in both houses of parliament must be endorsed by a majority of voters in a referendum, Xinhua reported.
The revised national referendum law is an effort by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to amend the country's war-renouncing pacifist constitution.
Abe's administration has sought to reinterpret the constitution to exercise the collective defence rights in the short term, but in a long run seeks to revise the constitution and the revised national referendum law is a critical step toward the long-term goal.
Nevertheless, amending the pacifist constitution, which has never been revised since its promulgation in 1946, has drawn domestic and international criticism.