A Japanese government panel studying a possible abdication of Emperor Akihito is set to release on Monday an interim report that supports enacting special legislation that is applicable only to him.
The six-member panel is looking at how to accommodate Akihito’s apparent abdication wish expressed last August when he cited concerns that his age and health conditions may start limiting his ability to fulfill his duties. Akihito turned 83 last month.
The report to be released on Monday evening will pave the way for a parliamentary discussion. Media reports were published detailing its proposals.
The panel, after interviewing constitutional and monarchy experts, agreed that allowing an abdication was the most appropriate way to meet Akihito’s request, but that setting a permanent system covering all future emperors would be difficult.
If legislation is enacted, Emperor Akihito would be the first to abdicate in 200 years since Emperor Kokaku.
Panel members have said they planned to list both sides of the opinion. Some experts have said the Imperial House Law, the supreme law overseeing Japan’s monarchy, needs to be revised.
The panel avoided getting into more controversial issues, such as an option of allowing a female emperor, and how to address concerns of a shortage of successors to the Chrysanthemum throne.
The current law, established in 1947, is largely inherited from a 19th century constitution that banned abdication as a potential risk to political stability. But the experts said there was no such risk in today’s political system.
Some experts say that Akihito’s abdication wish is a wakeup call to the larger issues of aging and shortage of successors in Japan’s 2,000-year-old monarchy that go beyond his own retirement issues that reflects overall concerns about the country’s rapidly aging society and declining population.
Akihito and his wife Michiko have two sons Crown Prince Naruhito and his younger brother Akishino but after that, only one of the four grandchildren is eligible to the throne under Japan’s male-only succession system.
