Japan’s parliament on Friday received all parties’ views on amending a law to secure the number of imperial family members, as lawmakers seek to ensure the family’s long-term stability in the current Diet session through mid-July.
Facing internal disagreements, the largest opposition Centrist Reform Alliance became the last of 13 political parties setting out its views on two proposals by a government expert panel.
During a parliamentary meeting on Friday, the opposition party took a more cautious stance than the ruling coalition and other smaller opposition parties supporting the proposals — one concerning the adoption of men from former branch families into the imperial family and the other to allow female imperial family members to retain their status after marriage.
House of Representatives Speaker Eisuke Mori told a press conference after the meeting he hopes to compile a summary of the views to be presented to each party next week, reiterating his aim for revising the Imperial House Law in the current Diet session.
That timeline is shared by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a conservative who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
With all views heard, moves toward revision are likely to center on whether differences can be resolved over bringing men from former branch families removed from the imperial register in 1947 back into the imperial family.
The idea is deemed a “top priority” by the ruling parties and backed by some in the opposition camp.
Under the current law, only males with patrilineal lineage to the emperor can inherit the Chrysanthemum Throne. There are only three heirs to 66-year-old Emperor Naruhito: his younger brother Crown Prince Fumihito, 60, his uncle Prince Hitachi, 90, and his nephew and the family’s only unmarried male, Prince Hisahito, 19.
In setting out its views, the opposition CRA said the conditions and processes for introducing branch members must be carefully set to gain public understanding.
It also indicated its view that the option to allow the female family members who marry commoners to maintain imperial status is a “priority measure,” and called for supplementary provisions to consider the individual circumstances of their spouses and children.
Currently, female members must leave the family upon marriage to a commoner.
Lawmakers from the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, one of the CRA’s founding parties, have backed the proposal on the families of married former female members. But it is unlikely to gain traction as other parties such as its other main founder, the Komeito party, as well as governing parties, have indicated caution or opposition.
Once a summary of parliament’s views is agreed, it is expected to be conveyed to Takaichi, whose government aims to amend the 1947 law before the regular Diet session ends on July 17.
In a nonbinding resolution in June 2017, committees on the issue in both houses of parliament called on the government to promptly hold discussions on “challenges in securing a stable imperial succession.”
A government expert panel put forward the two proposals in 2021, but it did not touch on whether to allow women or matrilineal imperial family members to ascend the throne, saying it would be premature to explore the issue.
Japan’s hereditary monarchy is said to date back over 2,600 years, including early emperors whose existence is disputed and several female emperors, with the throne consistently passing down the male line.
© KYODO
