Yamaji Aizan's Traces of the Development of Human Rights in Japanese History

Abstract

JN 1881 the leaders of the Meiji government announced their intention to formulate a constitution and establish a parliament. Between that announcement and the promulgation of the constitution in 1889 and the opening of the Diet in 1890, those leaders put in place a series of measures that they hoped would maintain their own power under the new political arrangement. One was the creation in 1885 of a system in which the prime minister and other ministers were appointed directly by the emperor. The Meiji constitution did not define the relationship between the Diet and the cabinet-in fact, the term cabinet was not mentioned in the constitution at all. 1 Not legally accountable to the Diet, the was in principle transcendental, above party politics. But while those responsible for framing the constitution envisaged the role of the Diet as being merely to offer advice to the ministers appointed by the emperor, many of those elected to the new parliament used its limited powers to challenge the government leaders. In this way, the opening of the Diet set the stage for a contest between those who believed the to be solely responsible to the emperor and those who held it should be responsible to the elected representatives of the people.2 To avoid a repetition of this situation, on the occasion of the second election, in February 1892, the government attempted to ensure the election of representatives who would support their policies. Using both bribery and strong-arm tactics, Home Minister Shinagawa Yajiro I I ) Plz - took the lead in this effort. In the resultant violence twenty-five people were killed and nearly four hundred injured. This overt government interference gave opposition parties additional ammunition with which to attack the government, and Shinagawa was forced to

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