Diet Leaders OK Outline of Imperial House Law Amendment Bill

Tokyo, June 19 (Jiji Press)–The leaders and deputy leaders of both chambers of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, Friday broadly approved an outline of a bill to revise the Imperial House Law as part of efforts to secure a sufficient number of Imperial Family members. The outline calls for allowing male members of the male line of former Imperial Family branches who are 15 or over to be adopted into the Imperial Family, informed sources said. It also calls for allowing current female members of the Imperial Family to decide on their own whether to remain in the Imperial Family upon marriage. A supplementary provision of the outline provides for a review every 30 years as necessary based on the number of Imperial Family members and other factors. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara presented the outline in a meeting with the leaders and deputy leaders of the Diet. The government plans to adopt a bill to revise the law by the end of this month at the earliest and submit it to the Diet, hoping that the bill will be enacted during the current Diet session. The outline is based on two measures that were backed by the ruling and opposition parties as the Diet’s consensus–one calling for allowing female members of the Imperial Family to retain their Imperial status after marriage and the other calling for adopting male members in the paternal line from former Imperial Family branches back into the family. The consensus stipulates that the adoption plan would cover the 11 former Imperial Family branches who left the Imperial Family in October 1947. It also noted that male members of the male line who entered the Imperial Family would not be eligible to succeed to the throne. The current female members of the Imperial Family would have a choice to decide their status after marriage in consideration of having lived under the current system. The outline did not mention the status of the husband and children of the female Imperial Family members. After Friday’s meeting, Eisuke Mori, speaker of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, said, “We judged the outline to be in line with the consensus of the country’s legislative branch.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]