Imperial Family Bill Criticized for Veering Off Diet Consensus

Tokyo, July 1 (Jiji Press)–Japanese opposition parties are criticizing that the government’s bill to revise the Imperial House Law deviates from the Diet’s consensus reached in talks between ruling and opposition parties. On Tuesday, the government adopted the bill at a cabinet meeting and submitted it to the House of Representatives, after securing support from the Japan Innovation Party, the coalition partner of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. However, opposition parties increasingly believe that the Diet consensus has now collapsed, making it uncertain whether the bill will be enacted before the ongoing Diet session ends on July 17. The bill would not just allow the Imperial Family to adopt male, paternal-line descendants of former Imperial Family branches but also making the sons of adoptees eligible to ascend to the throne. “We’ll provide careful explanations during Diet deliberations, so we can gain understanding,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said at a press conference. The government and the LDP initially aimed to complete related procedures within the ruling bloc by Monday, but this was delayed until Tuesday as the JIP opposed a government plan to limit Imperial Family adoptees to those aged 15 or older. JIP co-leader Fumitake Fujita claimed that a young child adopted into the Imperial Family could receive Imperial education. The JIP decided to support the bill after Fujita met with LDP Vice President Taro Aso and Takayuki Kobayashi, head of the LDP’s Policy Research Council, on Tuesday. At a press conference later, Fujita revealed that he was sincerely asked by Aso and Kobayashi to support the bill. Nevertheless, the JIP’s temporary opposition left frustration in the LDP. “I don’t know what they wanted to do,” an LDP official said. “That was not how a ruling party should behave.” Meanwhile, Shunichi Mizuoka, head of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, has strongly criticized the bill for allowing sons born to Imperial Family adoptees to succeed to the throne. “We cannot help but be angry at the government and ruling parties for blindsiding us by presenting something that had not been discussed,” Mizuoka said. The Diet consensus did not address the Imperial succession eligibility of adoptees’ children due to differing views among political parties. Despite this, Lower House Speaker Eisuke Mori, who led talks to compile the consensus, provoked a backlash from opposition parties when he said that if an adoptee’s child is male, he has the right to succeed to the throne. Chief Cabinet Secretary Kihara expressed a similar view when the government presented a draft of the bill to the ruling parties on Friday. Former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance was initially negative about adoptions by the Imperial Family but later praised the efforts to build the consensus, according to informed sources. After hearing the ruling bloc’s intentions, however, Noda wrote in a blog post that a bill drafted without good faith would face a “bumpy ride.” His concern seems to be coming true. The ruling and opposition camps are also at odds over a JIP-championed bill to reduce the number of seats in the Lower House. The ruling bloc held deliberations on the seat reduction bill in the Lower House special committee on political reform on Tuesday, which opposition parties boycotted. Additionally, all opposition parties were absent when the Lower House passed a bill to criminalize the act of damaging the national flag. The LDP has emphasized the importance of a “calm environment” for talks on revising the Imperial House Law. However, DPFP chief Yuichiro Tamaki said, “It’s extremely regrettable that the government and ruling parties are destroying the calm environment.” “We want the government and ruling parties to work to restore the environment,” Tamaki added. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]