Japan's parliament passes landmark amendments to the Succession to the Throne Law, excludes women

Japan's parliament on Friday approved a bill that would fundamentally amend the country's Imperial House Law, the primary legislation regulating the succession process in the Japanese empire.

Media and press reports quoting the new draft law revealed that the amendments will allow the imperial family to adopt male relatives from distant branches who are over the age of 15, paving the way for their future sons to take the throne legally, in addition to granting princesses the right to retain their royal status even after they marry outside the imperial family.

Japanese parliamentary sources stressed that these amendments are primarily aimed at countering the risk of shrinking the descendants of the imperial family and declining the number of males eligible to inherit the throne, in light of the strict historical laws that have been restricting the process of transferring the imperial title in the country and putting the ruling dynasty in front of real demographic obstacles.

Ongoing ban and male inheritance pressures

Japan's parliament has kept the ban on women on the imperial throne unchanged, despite the overwhelming popularity of Princess Aiko, the 24-year-old daughter of the current emperor Naruhito, who is demanded by a large section of the Japanese street to ensure the stability of the throne.

Current rules of succession indicated that after the current Emperor Naruhito, the throne would pass to his younger brother, the 60-year-old Crown Prince Fumihito, and then to his 19-year-old nephew, Prince Hisahito, which would mean the end of the current dynasty altogether if the young prince did not have a male child in the future under the umbrella of the previous laws.

Historians and experts have traced the roots of the current Exclusive Male Succession Law to the original Imperial House Act of 1889, which explicitly stipulated that only males of patriarchal descent should ascend the throne, the same principle that was maintained when the law was updated in 1947 following World War II, making the amendment today the first change to the basic text of the legislation since 1949.

Poll Numbers Clash with Conservative Opposition

A wide-ranging national poll conducted by Japan's Mainishi Shimbun newspaper in late March showed that 61 percent of respondents fully supported the idea of a woman ascending to the imperial throne, while only 9 percent of the sample was opposed.

A more recent poll of more than 2,000 Japanese citizens, conducted between June 20 and 21, revealed a significant rise in popular support for a female accession to the throne, with 73 percent of respondents voting in favor of having an empress at the top of the pyramid of imperial power in Tokyo.

This popular desire has faced fierce opposition from some conservative and traditional politicians and figures within the country, most notably Sanai Takeichi, the first woman prime minister in Japan's history, who has repeatedly expressed her unequivocal rejection of amending the historic succession rules in favor of women in line with the vision of her electoral base.

A gap between public opinion and ruling political trends

Hideya Kawanashi, a professor at Nagoya University and a leading expert on Japan's imperial system, told AFP that the new bill that was passed does not reflect the aspirations and will of the Japanese public in any way.

The Japanese academic Kawanishi explained that the primary and fundamental goal for the dominant conservative current in the ruling LDP and its political allies is entirely focused on maintaining the exclusive succession of men of patriarchal descent only, which is the main reason why they ignore popular voices calling for reform, development, and modernization of laws.

Kavanishi stressed that the strict hereditary rules adopted by the conservative electoral base are primarily based on old patriarchal concepts and tendencies, arguing that keeping the ban on women in the new amendment may have been a necessary and decisive political maneuver to ensure the votes of these traditional electoral blocs in future political elections.