"Constitutionalists under the Meiji Constitution: A Study of Keigo Kiyoura"

2020/05/23

In Keio 2 (1866), Yukichi Fukuzawa, at the age of 32, was an Enlightenment thinker who explained "Rikkun Teiritsu" (constitutional monarchy) in the first volume of "Things Western (Seiyō Jijō)" as a system where "though there are not two kings in a country, there are certain national laws that restrain the authority of the monarch," and noted that "many European countries today employ this system." He was introducing a political system based on the idea of the rule of law, where even the Taikun (Tokugawa Shogun) would be bound by a constitution.

In contrast, Keigo Kiyoura, the subject of this book, was 16 years old in Keio 2 and a Keio students of the private Juku Kangien in Hita, Kyushu. Unlike Yukichi Fukuzawa, he did not become familiar with Dutch or English books, but in Meiji 9 (1876), he entered service at the Ministry of Justice, where he was able to study the ideas of the rule of law and constitutionalism closely under the French legal scholar Boissonade, who had been invited by the government.

Of course, unlike Yukichi Fukuzawa, Kiyoura's work was not intended for the general public, but in Meiji 13, he published "Lectures on the Code of Criminal Instruction" (Chizaiho Kogi), which was the code of criminal procedure of that time. In this work, one can see Kiyoura as one of the enlightened bureaucrats of the Meiji government, accepting the principles of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and codifying the ideas of the rule of law and constitutionalism.

Starting from his service at the Ministry of Justice, Kiyoura was appointed to positions responsible for organizing and operating the state governance apparatus throughout the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa eras—serving as the Police Bureau Officer of the Ministry of Home Affairs, a Member of the House of Peers, Minister of Justice, Privy Councilor, Prime Minister, and, after stepping down as Prime Minister, as a Jushin (senior statesman). He passed away in Showa 17 at the age of 93. Regarding his life, I could not help but feel skeptical about the established theory that he was merely a figure who served as a bridge during the transition between the old and new eras, as the organizer of the last transcendental cabinet before the party cabinet system.

In my case, my encounter with Kiyoura began with Shigejiro Ogawa, who served as a prison administration bureaucrat in the first half of his life and, in the second half, worked as a commissioner for Osaka Prefecture on the planning and implementation of the Homen-iin (district committee members), the predecessors of today's Minsei-iin (district welfare commissioners). Kiyoura was Ogawa's superior at the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Justice, his supporter, and his father-in-law. Regarding Ogawa, his biography was published a few years ago by Keio University Press as "Prison Administration Bureaucrats and Meiji Japan: A Study of Shigejiro Ogawa." While I felt a strong need to discuss what Ogawa lacked when writing about him, in the case of Kiyoura, I have proceeded with publication without first identifying what he lacked.

"Constitutionalists under the Meiji Constitution: A Study of Keigo Kiyoura"

Shuzo Ono

Seori Shobo

244 pages, 3,400 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.