Japan CRA to Back Adoption Proposal for Imperial Family

Tokyo, May 7 (Jiji Press)–The major Japanese opposition Centrist Reform Alliance is set to tolerate a proposal aimed at securing a sufficient number of Imperial Family members through adoption, it was learned Thursday. At the day’s meeting of a related internal panel, the CRA reached a broad agreement to back the proposal, in which male members on the paternal line of former Imperial Family branches would be adopted back into the family. It also reaffirmed support for another proposal that allows female Imperial Family members to retain their status of the family after marriage. However, divisions remain in the party over whether the husbands and children of such female members should be given Imperial Family status. The CRA plans to hold discussions again Monday and compile its position, as Eisuke Mori, speaker of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, has urged the party to formulate its stance by mid-May. The Lower House speaker has expressed a wish to revise the Imperial House Law during the ongoing Diet session, which is slated to end in mid-July. Attention is being paid to the CRA’s position on the adoption proposal, as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, the Japan Innovation Party, are in favor of it while the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan is against the option. Most parties support allowing female members to retain Imperial Family status. About 15 Lower House members of the CRA attended Thursday’s meeting, in which Hirofumi Ryu, head of the party panel, presented a draft plan based on the result of an internal survey. The draft calls for allowing female members to retain Imperial Family status and postponing a decision on the status of their husbands and children until a certain date, as well as carefully designing the proposed adoption system, which is expected to cover members from 11 former branches that left the Imperial Family in 1947. According to informed sources, a panel member said in the meeting that husbands and children should be given Imperial Family status while another said that a decision should not be postponed. Two participants expressed concern over the adoption proposal, but Ryu told reporters after the meeting that the option was broadly accepted. Ruling-opposition talks on securing a sufficient number of Imperial Family members are expected to resume later this month after the CRA finishes its internal discussions. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]