Japan to submit female succession bill
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-01 14:29

TOKYO - The Japanese government will submit a bill to allow women to assume the imperial throne in the parliamentary session starting in January, a top official said Thursday.

Japanese Princess Aiko, center, waves from a car window , with her parents Crown Prince Naruhito, left, and Crown Princess Masako as they visit the Emperor and the Empress at the Imperial Palace, in Tokyo on her birthday December 1, 2005. Princess Aiko, the only child of the Japan's imperial heir, turned four-year-old Thursday. [AP]

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said a 15-member team had been established to work on the legislation, which he said would mirror a recent report by a special panel on the issue.

"We are making preparations to hand in the bill," he told reporters.

The panel last week recommended revising Japanese law to give an emperor's first-born child of either sex the right to head the world's oldest hereditary monarchy.

The revision, if approved, is expected to make Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako's only child Aiko — who celebrated her 4th birthday Thursday — second in line to the throne, behind her father.

Under the 1947 Imperial Household Law, only males who have emperors on their father's side can succeed to the throne. Japanese royals could face a serious succession crisis, however, with no boy born to the family since the 1960s.

Support for the change is high. A recent poll by the nationwide newspaper Asahi showed 78 percent of the respondents were in favor of a reigning empress.

Eight empresses have ruled Japan in the last 1,500 years, the most recent being Gosakuramachi, who reigned from 1762 to 1770.