CRA to Accept Expert Panel Proposals on Imperial Family

Tokyo, May 12 (Jiji Press)--The opposition Centrist Reform Alliance decided Tuesday to accept two proposals by a Japanese government expert panel to ensure a sufficient number of Imperial Family members, paving the way for full-scale parliamentary talks on revising the Imperial House Law.

At its board meeting, the party determined that the preferable option is a proposal allowing female Imperial Family members to retain their Imperial status after marriage.

The other proposal would allow male members in the paternal line of 11 former Imperial Family branches that left the family in 1947 to be adopted back into the family, on the condition that the adoption system is carefully designed.

Meanwhile, the CRA postponed taking a position on whether the husbands and children of female Imperial Family members should be given Imperial Family status.

On Thursday, a CRA panel reached a broad agreement to support the female member proposal and tolerate the adoption proposal, but party heavyweight Yukio Edano voiced opposition to this stance, prompting the panel to leave its final decision on the adoption proposal to panel chief Hirofumi Ryu.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]