午夜剧场

The current Imperial House Law was enacted in 1947 alongside the Constitution of Japan. Nearly 80 years have passed since then, and while various institutional contradictions have been pointed out during that time, legal reform has yet to be achieved.

The postwar Imperial House Law destabilized the imperial succession by limiting eligibility to legitimate offspring and maintaining the "male-line male" principle, following the precedent of the prewar Imperial House Law. As the birthrate declined in the 1990s, the Imperial Family was no exception, and the decrease in the number of imperial family members became prominent.

Consequently, in the late 1990s, the Cabinet Secretariat, the Imperial Household Agency, and the Cabinet Legislation Bureau held secret study groups at the Akasaka Prince Hotel, where a draft for amending the Imperial House Law for stable imperial succession was secretly prepared. This draft culminated in the November 2005 report by Prime Minister Koizumi's private advisory body, the "Advisory Council on the Imperial House Law."

Since then, there have been various debates regarding the imperial succession, but there is no doubt that this report remains an important starting point. The report was immediately turned into a bill and scheduled for submission to the ordinary Diet session. However, just then, news of Princess Kiko of Akishino's pregnancy broke, and the discussion was temporarily shelved.

With the birth of Prince Hisahito in September of that same year, the debate subsided as if the problem had been solved. However, can we truly say that the imperial succession has stabilized just because one male was born into the generation following the current Emperor Naruhito and Prince Akishino?

Except for Prince Hisahito, the relatively young members of the Imperial Family are all female. It is expected that female members will eventually leave the Imperial Family upon marriage. Will it be possible to secure enough imperial family members to support Prince Hisahito in the future? This book re-examines the contradictory Imperial House Law, verifying the process from the conflicts surrounding its drafting in the Meiji era to the establishment of the current law as a subordinate law of the postwar Constitution, clarifying the political background of the still-unresolved succession issue.

Following the Koizumi Cabinet, the Noda, Abe, and Suga Cabinets approached this issue, but they have yet to find a clue to a solution. To solve the problem, procedural research is as important as institutional design. From the beginning, conservative factions within the LDP who strictly adhere to the "male-line male" principle have blocked a resolution to this issue.

This book pursues a "greatest common denominator" that does not shy away from wise compromise.

Hidehiko Kasahara

Chuko Shinsho

256 pages, 990 yen (tax included)