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Japan Clears Way for Emperor to Step Down in 1st Abdication in 200 Years

posted by n1 on Monday June 12 2017, @04:06AM   
from the game-of-thrones dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Japan has passed legislation paving the way for 83-year-old Emperor Akihito to abdicate. The law sets the stage for the first abdication of a reigning monarch in two centuries, in a royal family which has a history stretching back 2,600 years.

[...] According to the 1947 Imperial House Law that regulates the line of imperial succession, the emperor cannot step down. The last Japanese monarch to abdicate was Emperor Kokaku, who left in favor of his son back in 1817.

Another issue the Japanese government will discuss is the continuity of the heirs, as women are not allowed to inherit the throne. Additionally, a woman from the imperial family who marries outside the family is then excluded. Akihito has another son, Prince Akishino, and a grandson, Hisahito, aged just 10. All the other members of the royal family are female.

Source: RT

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Original Submission

• Re:Get back up on that Throne Mister.... (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:47AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 12 2017, @05:47AM (#524140)

  It was just one of many changes made as a result of the post-war Constitution. But the U.S. did not directly make it so:

  Article 2 of the Constitution of Japan, promulgated in 1947 by influence of the U.S. occupation administration, provides that "The Imperial Throne shall be dynastic and succeeded to in accordance with the Imperial Household Law passed by the Diet." The Imperial Household Law of 1947, enacted by the ninety-second and last session of the Imperial Diet, retained the exclusion on female dynasts found in the 1889 law. The government of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru hastily cobbled together the legislation to bring the Imperial Household in compliance with the American-written Constitution of Japan that went into effect in May 1947. In an effort to control the size of the imperial family, the law stipulates that only legitimate male descendants in the male line can be dynasts; that imperial princesses lose their status as Imperial Family members if they marry outside the Imperial Family;[11] and that the Emperor and other members of the Imperial Family may not adopt children. It also prevented branches, other than the branch descending from Taishō, from being imperial princes any longer.

  Parent

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