2023 Volume 74 Issue 1 Pages 1_225-1_247
The present article analyzes how the drafters of the Meiji Constitution examined various aspects of the British constitutional monarchy, and the possibility of their introduction into the monarchy in Japan. Its main focus is on the counsel received from Sir Francis Taylor Piggott (1852–1925), a British jurist appointed in 1887 as a legal adviser to the Japanese prime minister. Through scrutiny of legal reports submitted by Piggott as well as German advisers, in addition to a semi-official commentary on the Constitution among other sources, the article draws attention to the fact that while some British constitutional principles (e.g. the principle that ministers shall give their advice to the sovereign) were adopted in the Meiji Constitution, the parliamentary aspects of British monarchy (e.g. the parliamentary cabinet system or passage of Acts of Indemnity), in addition to the doctrine that the King/Queen “reigns but does not govern,” were rejected in the drafting process. This was the conclusion drawn by the Constitution’s drafters from what it seemed to be an irreconcilable difference between Japan and Britain as constitutional monarchies founded on starkly different principles: imperial sovereignty in Japan as opposed to parliamentary sovereignty in the British constitutional system.