Meiji Constitution (1889)
The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, granted by the emperor in 1889 and in force until 1947.
Overview
Promulgated on February 11, 1889 and in force from November 1890, the Meiji Constitution was drafted chiefly by Ito Hirobumi after studying European systems, especially the Prussian model, with advice from German legal scholars. Sovereignty rested with the emperor, declared sacred and inviolable, who granted the document as a gift to his subjects. It created a bicameral Imperial Diet with an appointed House of Peers and an elected House of Representatives, but ministers answered to the emperor rather than parliament, and the armed forces claimed independent access to the throne. Militarists exploited that independence in the 1930s. It was replaced by the postwar Constitution of Japan in 1947.
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