Page:Constitutional imperialism in Japan (IA constitutionalim00clemrich).pdf/15

No. 3] that an English lawyer, counsel for the Japanese government, in a case before the English Consular Court at Yokohama, had used the name of the Emperor in his plea!

The Constitution further states positively that

The Emperor is the head of the Empire, combining in himself the rights of sovereignty and exercising them, according to the provisions of the present Constitution.

Ito, in his comments on this article, refers to the Emperor as

This Most Exalted Personage who thus holds in His hands, as it were, all the ramifying threads of the political life of the country, just as the brain, in the human body, is the primitive source of all mental activity manifested through the four limbs and the different parts of the body.

Not only does the Emperor thus exercise the executive power of the State, but, according to a specific article: "The Emperor exercises the legislative power with the consent of the Imperial Diet." And, as the Emperor, by Article VI, " gives sanction to laws and orders them to be promulgated and executed," it naturally and logically follows, according to Ito, that "He also possesses the power to refuse His sanction." On this point, Uyehara writes as follows:

The sanction of the Sovereign to a bill is the final point in Japanese legislation. The Emperor is absolutely free either to give or refuse sanction. Therefore, you may say that the Emperor has an absolute veto over all legislation. There is no constitutional way for the Diet to over-ride this veto of the Emperor."

Moreover, the imperial control of the legislative organ, the Imperial Diet, is seen in the fact that, by Article VII, "The Emperor convokes the Imperial Diet, opens, closes and prorogues it, and dissolves the House of Representatives."

The fact that the Constitution reserves to the Emperor cer-