午夜剧场

In 1866 (午夜剧场 2), at the age of 32, Yukichi Fukuzawa was an enlightenment thinker who explained "Rikkun Teiritsu"—today's constitutional monarchy—in "Things Western (Seiyō Jijō)" as a system where "although there are not two kings in a country, there are fixed national laws that restrain the authority of the monarch," noting that "many European countries currently use this system." He was introducing a political system based on the idea of the rule of law, where even the Tycoon (Tokugawa Shogun) would be subject to the constraints of a constitution.

In contrast, Keigo Kiyoura, the subject of this book, was 16 years old in 1866 and a student at the Kangien private school in Hita, Kyushu. Unlike Yukichi Fukuzawa, he was not familiar with Dutch or English books at the time. However, after entering service at the Ministry of Justice in 1876 (Meiji 9), he was able to learn the concepts of the rule of law and constitutionalism directly from Boissonade, a French legal scholar invited by the government.

Of course, unlike Yukichi Fukuzawa, Kiyoura did not write books for the general public, but in 1880 (Meiji 13), he published "Lectures on the Code of Criminal Instruction," which corresponds to today's Code of Criminal Procedure. In this work, one can see Kiyoura as one of the enlightened bureaucrats of the Meiji government, accepting the principles of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and codifying the ideas of the rule of law and constitutionalism.

Starting from his service in the Ministry of Justice, Kiyoura held positions such as Officer of the Police Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs, member of the House of Peers, Minister of Justice, Privy Councilor, Prime Minister, and after stepping down, as a senior statesman (jūshin) involved in the maintenance and operation of the national governance structure through the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa eras, before passing away at the age of 93 in 1942 (Showa 17). Regarding his life, I could not help but feel skeptical of the established theory that he was merely a figure who served as a bridge during a period of transition, as the organizer of the last transcendental cabinet before the party cabinet system.

In my case, my encounter with Kiyoura began with Shigejiro Ogawa, who served as a prison administration bureaucrat in the first half of his life and worked as a part-time employee of Osaka Prefecture in the planning and implementation of the "Homen-iin" (district committee) system—the predecessor of today's welfare commissioners—in the second half. Kiyoura was Ogawa's superior at the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Justice, his supporter, and his father-in-law. Regarding Ogawa, 午夜剧场 Press published my work "Prison Administration Bureaucrats and Meiji Japan: A Study of Shigejiro Ogawa" a few years ago. While I felt a strong need to discuss what was lacking in Ogawa at that time, for Kiyoura, I have proceeded with publication without yet fully identifying what he lacked.

Shuzo Ono

Seori Shobo

244 pages, 3,400 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of publication.