This essay argues that the Constitution of Japan is not a normal constitution independently enacted by a sovereign nation, but a “treaty constitution” imposed under occupation and, more precisely, a basic law of occupation policy.
From the standpoint that it should have been invalidated upon the restoration of independence, it fundamentally reexamines the Meiji Constitution, sovereignty, constitutional revision, and the distortions of Japan’s postwar common sense.

2019-06-01
In other words, the Constitution of Japan is a treaty constitution, not an ordinary constitution.
To be more precise, it should be called a basic law of occupation policy.

The following book is not only a must-read for all Japanese people, but also a must-read for people all over the world.
It is filled with facts that those who merely subscribed to The Asahi Shimbun and watched NHK never knew… facts they were never told.
It is one of the greatest books in the postwar world.
Mr. Watanabe Shoichi was from Yamagata Prefecture, the prefecture neighboring Miyagi Prefecture, where I was born.
The people of Yamagata must continue to take pride before Japan and the world in the fact that they are compatriots of a man who was the greatest intellectual in postwar Japan and one of Japan’s true treasures.
The New Constitution Should Be Invalidated.
Then how should we think about the legitimacy of the Constitution of Japan, which constitutional protection scholars insist upon.
Among constitutional scholars, I think the most coherent opinion is that of attorney Minamide Kikuji, probably the only one who did not graduate from a university.
Under the Potsdam Declaration, the Emperor was made “subject to.”
After that, an order was issued to create a constitution, and even a draft was imposed.
In order to make that into the new constitution, something called the “Constitution Drafting Committee” was created, but 99 percent of its work was simply translating the Occupation forces’ original draft.
It was not that the Japanese committee members created the draft.
And because His Majesty the Emperor was under Occupation rule, he was in a condition of coercion.
Therefore, it can be said that there was no legitimacy in the Imperial Rescript on the Constitution.
After all, he was “subordinate” to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers.
“I rejoice deeply that, based upon the general will of the Japanese people, the foundation for the construction of a new Japan has been established, and I hereby sanction and cause to be promulgated the revision of the Imperial Constitution, having received the consultation of the Privy Council and the resolution of the Imperial Diet pursuant to Article 73 of the Imperial Constitution.”
This is what the rescript says, but it is obvious that it was not based on the general will of the Japanese people.
Under the Occupation there was the “Press Code,” so information could not possibly leak out, much less could there be any criticism of the constitutional draft.
Therefore, it means that His Majesty the Emperor was made to tell a lie.
How should this situation be explained.
There is a concept called a “treaty constitution.”
Japan was under Allied occupation, and His Majesty the Emperor was also subordinate to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, which means that the Japanese government itself was subordinate to the Allied forces.
To have created a new constitution under those circumstances can be understood as a treaty based on the Potsdam Declaration with the Occupation forces.
In other words, the Constitution of Japan is a treaty constitution, not an ordinary constitution.
To be more precise, it should be called a basic law of occupation policy.
Because it was a treaty constitution, at the termination of that treaty, that is, at the restoration of independence, the Japanese government should have declared the Constitution of Japan invalid, and at the same time declared either the enactment of a constitution as an exercise of sovereignty, that is, an ordinary constitution, or a return to the Meiji Constitution, and then, in accordance with that procedure, revised the Meiji Constitution.
Still more, Japan should never have continued to venerate, little by little, the Constitution of Japan that it was made to create on the basis of a draft written by the Occupation forces, nor should it have proceeded to revise it.
France had the experience of being occupied by Germany and becoming the Vichy regime (Note I), so when part or all of the national territory is occupied, the constitution must not be revised.
And when de Gaulle took power, everything that had been enacted under the Vichy regime was treated as though it had never existed.
Now there is discussion of revising the Constitution of Japan, but this will inevitably become a wound later.
Even I, an amateur, can see this, so there is no way future constitutional scholars will fail to notice it.
If a constitution created in an age without sovereignty is revised, then an argument will inevitably arise later that the Japanese people after independence thereby granted legitimacy to that constitution.
Of course, the contents of a newly created constitution may be the same as those of the present Constitution of Japan.
However, the current constitution must first be invalidated.
Japan has continued for years to debate the amendment clause of Article 96 of the Constitution.
Even though the Occupation forces created the whole thing in less than ten days, Japan as a whole has spent years debating only the amendment clause.
It is utterly ridiculous.
Why is it ridiculous.
Because it is fraudulent.
It is ridiculous because it does not hold together logically.
Previously, political commentator Takemura Kenichi said, “What is common sense in the world is nonsense in Japan, and what is common sense in Japan is nonsense in the world.”
On that point, almost all foreigners nod in agreement.
Certainly, in the postwar era, “Japan’s common sense is the world’s nonsense,” but was that said of prewar Japan as well.
No, it was not.
Since the Meiji era, Japan had made efforts to align Japanese common sense with the common sense of the world.
The Meiji Constitution also aimed at that, so Japan’s standard after Meiji was unquestionably the world standard.
However, if one takes as a shield the fraudulent assertion that the Constitution of Japan, which is a “basic law of occupation policy,” is a real constitution, everything becomes distorted.
In one matter after another, “Japan’s common sense became the world’s nonsense.”
In the preamble to the Constitution of Japan, it is written, “We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time and are deeply conscious of the high ideals controlling human relationship, and we have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world” (underlining by Watanabe).
For example, just as Monaco entrusts its security to France, there may be cases in which a small country entrusts its security when it forms an alliance with a large country.
However, there is no foolish country that entrusts its very existence to trusting another country.
Even by reading this part alone, which says that whether the people live or die is entrusted to another country, it is almost the same as saying, “This is not a constitution.”
Moreover, look at the countries around us.
The Soviet Union was a country that, even after the war had ended, abducted hundreds of thousands of Japanese people and caused tens of thousands to starve or freeze to death.
North Korea is a hereditary dictatorship, South Korea is a country that cannot even keep the Basic Treaty between Japan and the Republic of Korea, and China is a country that massacred tens of millions of its own citizens and, moreover, invaded Tibet and the Uyghur region and continues to commit acts of brutality.
Even America was a country that ignored the Potsdam Declaration and treated Japan as having made an unconditional surrender.
Are Japanese people supposed to entrust their safety and lives in confidence to such countries.
There can be no such constitution.
(Note 1) The Vichy regime was the government established in 1940 (Showa 15), after France was defeated by the attack of Nazi Germany, in the central city of Vichy, with Marshal Pétain, former vice premier of the previous cabinet, as its head.
Because German control was strong and it was pro-German, it invited civil war with the Resistance forces, and in 1944, with the liberation of France by the Allies, the government disappeared.
Those involved were punished.