Minutes of the Imperial Diet (http://teikokugikai-i.ndl.go.jp/) are available on the NDL website (Top > Diet & Parliaments > The Database System for the Minutes of the Imperial Diet). As of July 2005, you can search in the image data and text data of the minutes of the 91st (Nov. 26 - Dec. 25, 1946) and 92nd (Dec. 28 - Mar. 31) Imperial Diet sessions, approximately 4,600 pages in total.

Top page of the Database System

The Imperial Diet and the minutes

The Imperial Diet (Teikoku Gikai) was the bicameral national assembly established under the Meiji constitution of 1889. Its first session was opened on November 29, 1890, and it was dissolved after World War II by the 92nd session on March 31, 1947, to be succeeded by the National Diet (May 1947-).

The minutes of the Imperial Diet are important source materials for modern Japanese political history. Moreover, since the bills of the Constitution of Japan and some laws still in effect (eg. the Fundamental Law of Education and the Imperial Household Law) were deliberated in the Imperial Diet after the War, the minutes show the process of the establishment of the Constitution and laws of Japan.

The database

The National Diet Library has been working on the development of this database system since FY2004. By the end of FY2009 it will provide access to image data of 300 thousand pages of minutes including supplements, tables of contents and indexes, covering all the sessions of the Imperial Diet. In addition to these image data, text data of the stenographic records and supplements of the 88th-92nd sessions will be provided.

Text of a Minute

The database can be searched by date, number of the session, and a speaker's name, title or affiliation. For the sessions after the War (88th-92nd), you can also conduct full-text search throughout the minutes except for the charts.

Original minutes of the 90th session and earlier are written in kanji and katakana. To improve readability, katakana in the minutes of the 88th to 90th sessions will be converted to hiragana in the text data. If you would like to see the original transcription of minutes, please see the image data.

Additionally, you can search through the minutes using the modern form of kanji while some kanji in the minutes are written in the old format. For instance, by entering "" or "" (modern form), "" or "" (old form) will also be searched automatically. Therefore if you enter "," "" will be included in the search results.

Full-text Database System for the Minutes of the Diet

The Minutes of the National Diet, the parliament of Japan established in 1947, is already available at http://kokkai.ndl.go.jp/ . It covers the minutes of the National Diet from the first session in 1947 to the present.