The declining number of imperial family members is a problem that cannot be deferred. Opening a path for female imperial family members to remain in the imperial family after marriage, and opening a path for male-line male descendants of the former collateral branches (\u65e7\u5bae\u5bb6) to be adopted into the imperial family \u2014 I do not object to these two directions in themselves. Nor do I dismiss the weight of the “consensus of the legislature” (\u7acb\u6cd5\u5e9c\u306e\u7dcf\u610f) reached through repeated consultations between the vice-speakers of both houses of the Diet and representatives of each party, which endorsed both of these directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem lies further down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bill that the government adopted at cabinet meeting and submitted to the Diet includes something the “consensus of the legislature” had explicitly left open: whether a child born to an adopted former-royal male would hold succession rights. The consensus had stated this point required further deliberation. The government’s bill, however, states unilaterally that such a child would hold succession rights. On this single point, opposition parties have protested that the bill “deviates from the consensus of the legislature,” and Diet deliberations have stalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do not intend here to evaluate the political merits of the government’s or ruling coalition’s position. What I want to ask is something more fundamental than that \u2014 how this reform bill stands in relation to one constitutional requirement that precedes all of it: Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan states:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe Emperor shall be the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people, deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
This article does not directly define who should become Emperor, nor the requirements for succession. The details of succession are set out in Article 2, which entrusts their specification to “the Imperial House Law passed by the Diet.” Read in isolation, this framing makes it look as though amending the Imperial House Law is no different from amending any other statute \u2014 a matter to be settled through ordinary legislative process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this division conceals a trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The very fact that Article 2 entrusted the details of succession to “resolution by the Diet” was, historically, a choice carrying considerable weight. Under the Meiji Constitution, the Imperial House Law stood alongside the Constitution as one of “two codes” (\u4e21\u5178) of equal and independent standing. Its amendment did not involve the Imperial Diet at all; it was handled through consultation with the Council of Imperial Family Members and the Privy Council \u2014 a process that remained entirely internal to the imperial institution. The question of who would become Emperor was, by design, settled outside any body representing the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The current Constitution deliberately transformed this structure. It restructured the rules of succession into a matter for resolution by the Diet, the body representing the people. This was not a mere technical change in legislative method. It should be understood as the constitutional framers’ deliberate choice to extend the principle of legitimacy set out in Article 1 \u2014 “the will of the people” \u2014 down into the level of Article 2 and the Imperial House Law itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If that is so, the argument that “it is enough for the Diet to pass a resolution through the ordinary process” actually cuts the other way. It is precisely that “ordinary Diet deliberation” that must serve as the sole forum where Article 1’s requirement \u2014 the duty of explanation and the formation of consensus \u2014 is discharged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Mechanism May Be Sound, but Its Substance Has Not Met the Requirement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What must be examined here is the difference between formal legality and substantive legitimacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If both houses of the Diet pass a bill by majority vote, it becomes valid law in form. This is a matter of form, and there is no doubt that the current bill can, in this sense, come into force “legally.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Article 1 demands more than that. In the moment of deciding the very nature of the Emperor’s existence \u2014 who may become Emperor, the qualitative substance of the institution itself \u2014 has a consensus genuinely been formed through deliberation open to the people? This is a question on a different plane from whether formal requirements have been satisfied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The framework of the “consensus of the legislature” was precisely an attempt by the political branches to consciously give substance to this requirement. That is why the fact that content outside that consensus \u2014 granting succession rights to a child of an adopted former-royal \u2014 was settled through last-minute bargaining within the ruling coalition (negotiations between policy officials of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party) should be taken seriously as a deficit in the duty of explanation required by the spirit of Article 1, even if it does not render the law legally void.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If this were a matter of tax policy or administrative procedure, it might be enough to pass through the ordinary legislative process as an ordinary policy matter. But the rules of imperial succession are not a quantitative policy choice. They are a qualitative decision defining the very mode of existence of the Emperor \u2014 the symbolic pillar of the entire constitutional order. Should it not be precisely this qualitative decision that Article 1’s “will of the people” is meant to reach?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What, Specifically, Is Missing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
On this basis, I would like to put forward three proposals to the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, the government should fully explain why it stepped outside the “consensus of the legislature” on this particular point.<\/strong> The question of whether a child of an adopted former-royal would hold succession rights was explicitly left open for further deliberation at the stage of the “consensus of the legislature.” Since the government has now fixed this point through its own judgment, it bears a responsibility to state clearly to the public the grounds for that judgment \u2014 why it chose to finalize this as government policy rather than sending the matter back for cross-party deliberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Second, the relationship to Article 14 of the Constitution should be discussed openly before the public.<\/strong> Does positioning descendants of the former collateral branches as a special group legally eligible to become imperial family members, on the basis of their lineage, sit consistently with Article 14’s prohibition of discrimination based on family origin (\u9580\u5730)? This question bears directly on the constitutionality of the bill itself. If the government avoids it, it risks setting the institution in motion while leaving the risk of a future constitutional challenge unaddressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Third, the design of the institution should give more careful consideration to the will and rights of the adopted individual himself.<\/strong> Is a change of status at age fifteen or older adequately secured as a matter of the individual’s own free decision? How is a design in which, once one becomes an imperial family member, one cannot leave that status by one’s own will, to be justified in relation to that individual’s basic human rights? Fixing the institution without addressing this consideration fails to give due regard to the person directly affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion: For Whom Is the Duty of Explanation Owed?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
I do not deny the need to address the problem of the declining number of imperial family members. On the contrary, I regard it as a reality that cannot be avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But settling a decision that touches so deeply on the continuity of the Emperor’s very existence, through bargaining internal to the political branches, without adequate explanation to the public, risks quietly eroding the foundation that Article 1 laid down: “the will of the people.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Article 1 does not directly determine the substance of the Emperor’s status. And yet the entire institution of the Emperor rests upon this article. Fixing the substance of the institution without discharging the duty of explanation owed to this foundation may be legal, but it falls short of the legitimacy that the Constitution genuinely requires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would ask the government, even now, to offer a forthright explanation on this single point: why it went beyond the “consensus of the legislature,” and how that judgment answers to the duty of explanation to the people that Article 1 demands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Proposal to the Government: Has the Imperial House Law Reform Bill Fulfilled Its Duty of Explanation Under A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.junkatanuma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}