TOKYO - Ruling and opposition parties have formally agreed to hold a House of Representatives plenary session on Friday to deliberate a bill to ensure the sustainability of the imperial family system, moving a step closer to bringing about the controversial changes.
The deliberation schedule was fixed on Thursday after a deal was struck to end a stalemate in the lower house over what opposition parties viewed as the government and ruling parties' high-handed way of handling parliamentary proceedings regarding other bills.
The gridlock had prevented the start of deliberations on the bill to revise the Imperial House Law, whose enactment during the current Diet session through July 17 is a top priority for the government as well as the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party.
The bill is expected to be approved in the lower house, with the second largest opposition party, the Democratic Party for the People, likely to join the ruling bloc, which controls more than two-thirds of seats in the chamber, in supporting it.
While the LDP, led by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, and the JIP remain a minority in the House of Councillors, the bill is also likely to pass the upper house with the support of the DPP and other opposition parties. The chamber's largest opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, plans to vote against it.
If the bill is enacted, it would be the first substantial amendment of the Imperial House Law, which was implemented in 1947.
The government has been pushing to revise the law to address the dwindling number of members of the imperial family, whose female members are required to relinquish their imperial status after marriage to commoners. The number of heirs eligible to succeed to the Chrysanthemum Throne has also declined as the law limits succession to males who have an emperor on their father's side.
The revisions will pave the way for female members to retain their imperial status even after marrying commoners and enable the adoption into the imperial family of male offspring of former branches that were stripped of their imperial status under the U.S. occupation after Japan lost World War II.
The bill was compiled by the government based on the "consensus of the legislature" worked out between the lower and upper house speakers and vice speakers by focusing on measures to ensure an adequate number of imperial family members without delving into succession issues.
But some opposition parties have criticized the bill for incorporating ideas that were not in the consensus, such as allowing a male child of adopted members of former branch families to be eligible to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne.
The idea reflected the government's apparent determination to maintain the tradition of limiting imperial heirs to males who are descended from an emperor on their father's side, which many conservatives in Japan are hoping to preserve rather than allowing a female member to reign.
Parliament had been gridlocked from late June as many opposition parties were angered by the ruling bloc seeking to force through deliberations of two key bills -- one to decrease lower house members and the other to set up a "second capital" to back up Tokyo.
But the situation normalized after the ruling parties agreed on Tuesday to make some concessions, including giving up plans to bulldoze the bill to slash lower house seats through parliament during the ongoing session.
