Documents with Commentaries Part 5 Enactment of the Constitution of Japan

5-13 Eliminating the Crimes of High Treason and Lese Majesty from Criminal Code

 The materials presented here show us a series of exchanges between the Japanese government and GHQ on removing lese majesty and high treason in revising the Criminal Code to bring it in line with the new Constitution. On December 20, 1946, General Whitney, Chief of Government Section, ordered Justice Minister Tokutaro Kimura to delete articles 73 to 76 which concerned lese majesty and high treason. In response to this on December 27, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida sent a letter to MacArthur asking that provisions relating to high treason be retained based on the following three reasons: 1) An act of violence against the person of the Emperor…should be considered as being of a character subversive of the state. 2) The same is true of the members of the Imperial Family. 3) All the countries under monarchical systems such as England have similar provisions. However, Alfred C. Oppler, Chief of the Courts and Legal Division in Government Section researched the claims of lese majesty and high treason in Yoshida's letter, and concluded that there was no statutory provision in the U.S. or in England comparable to the Japanese provision against high treason.

 Based on the results of this research, MacArthur sent a letter, dated February 25, 1947, to Prime Minister Yoshida refuting his arguments one by one. He rejected Yoshida's appeal stating that the Emperor and his family were entitled to no more and no less legal protection than that accorded to all other citizens, and to give them any greater protection would violate the principles of the new Constitution.

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• Outline
  1. Outline Part 1 Military Defeat and Efforts to Reform the Constitution
  2. Outline Part 2 Creation of Various Proposals to Reform the Constitution
  3. Outline Part 3 Formulation of the GHQ Draft and Response of the Japanese Government
  4. Outline Part 4 Deliberations in the Imperial Diet
  5. Outline Part 5 Enactment of the Constitution of Japan
• Documents with Commentaries
  1. Documents with Commentaries Part 1 Military Defeat and Efforts to Reform the Constitution
  2. Documents with Commentaries Part 2 Creation of Various Proposals to Reform the Constitution
  3. Documents with Commentaries Part 3 Formulation of the GHQ Draft and Response of the Japanese Government
  4. Documents with Commentaries Part 4 Deliberations in the Imperial Diet
  5. Documents with Commentaries Part 5 Enactment of the Constitution of Japan
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  1. Popular Sovereignty and the Emperor System
  2. Renunciation of War
  3. Guarantees for Fundamental Human Rights
  4. A New Bicameral System
  5. Judicial Review of Constitutionality
  6. Local Self-Government
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