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The Meiji constitution

The first constitution of Japan (大日本帝國憲法, dainipponteikokukenpô ) goes up with 1889. This one was based on the Prussian model and gave to the emperor a very important capacity with title in particular of supreme commander of the Army and Navy and imperial General headquarter (Daihonei).

The current constitution

The current constitution of Japan (日本国憲法, nipponkokukenpô ) completion date of the Second world war. The March 6th 1946, the government revealed the broad outlines of the constitution, voted the November 3rd 1946 and coming into effect the May 3rd 1947. It partly inspired by the work of Douglas MacArthur then supreme commander of the allied occupying forces in Japan.

article 9 of the constitution often causes astonishment abroad, and conflicts at the Japanese Parliament. Indeed, Japan had committed itself not maintaining army more. Nevertheless, the War of Korea initially, the Cold war then, and finally the will of recognition on the international scene pushed Japan to be obtained a nonofficial army. This one bears, by euphemism, the name of FAD (Force of self-defense) not to be in obvious violation with the constitution.

Here an extract of the constitution:

Chapter II. Renunciation of the war

Article 9. Sincerely aspiring to an international peace founded on justice and the order, the Japanese people give up forever the war as a sovereign right of the nation, or the threat, or of the force as means of payment of the international conflicts.

to achieve the goal fixed at the preceding paragraph, it will never be maintained forces terrestrial, naval and air, or another potential of war. The right of belligerency of the State will not be recognized.

See too

Film

A Japanese film, 日本の青空 ( blue sky of Japan , 2007, financed by subscription) tells, in the form of a docu-fiction, the development of the current Japanese constitution, apparently according to recent work Japanese historians, by granting a paramount role to the Japanese in the drafting of the text: a writer (Mr. Suzuki, first prisoner following the laws of exception during the war) wrote drafts read again by an small group of pacifist, other former prisoners and resistant, then submitted to the person in charge of the Japanese Parliament for the future constitution, even submitting that to him to the Americans of the CHQ (Central Head Quarter).

The original intention of film is to make the point that this constitution was not dictated by the Americans. This version contradicts however the official files which show that the contents of the new constitution differ notably from the project subjected initially by the cabinet of Kijuro Shidehara and that it was imposed on Hirohito and with its government by Douglas MacArthur in February and March 1946. (John Dower, Embracing Defeat , 1999, pp.374, 375,377,383,384)

http://www.cinema-indies.co.jp/aozora/index.html

Japan | Political | Political of Japan
Constitution
History of Japan

External bonds

Text of the Japanese constitution

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