KIMURA Sōta

Kimura Sota is a professor of constitutional law at Tokyo Metropolitan University (東京都立大学).

Standing for constitutionalism, he became one of the leading constitutional scholars who opposed the security bills in 2015. He is one of the organizers of Rikken Demokurashī no Kai (立憲デモクラシーの会), a political campaign group that demanded the government withdraw the bills. 

Kimura urged that the security bills be considered unconstitutional and that Japan not be able to exercise its collective self-defense right under the current constitution (2015 essay). He criticized the government for pushing the bills despite the wide protest against them, and he recognized protester’s voices from broad Japanese civil society as hope for Japan’s future constitutionalism. His essays about the constitution are available on The Okinawa Times and WEBRONZA.