You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Japanese. (December 2020)Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Japanese article. Machine translation, likeDeepL orGoogle Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. Youmust providecopyright attribution in theedit summary accompanying your translation by providing aninterlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary isContent in this edit is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at [[:ja:美濃部達吉]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template{{Translated|ja|美濃部達吉}} to thetalk page. For more guidance, seeWikipedia:Translation.

Tatsukichi Minobe (美濃部 達吉,Minobe Tatsukichi; May 7, 1873 – May 23, 1948) was a Japanese statesman and scholar ofconstitutional law.^[1] His interpretation of the role of the monarchy in the pre-warEmpire of Japan was a source of considerable controversy in the increasingly radicalized political environment of Japan in the 1930s.

His wife was the daughter ofDairoku Kikuchi, and his sonRyokichi Minobe was governor of Tokyo (1967–1979).

Minobe was born inTakasago city,Hyōgo prefecture to a doctor of Chinese medicine. He graduated from the law school ofTokyo Imperial University in 1897, where one of his mentors was futurePrivy CouncilorIchiki Kitokurō. He went to work for theHome Ministry, and was sent for further studies toGermany,France and theUnited Kingdom, returning to Japan in 1902 to take up a position as a professor at Tokyo Imperial University.

In 1912, Minobe published a work on constitutional interpretation, which came to be known as the “emperor organ theory”. Per Minobe, the “State”, orkokutai was supreme, and even theemperor was only an “organ of the State” as defined through the constitutional structure, rather than a sacred power beyond the state itself. Minobe used the metaphor of the head of the human body to describe the role of the emperor. This thesis was influenced by the work ofGermanlegal philosopherGeorg Jellinek, whose work,Allgemeine Staatslehre (General Theory of the State) was published in 1900, and also by the British concept of aconstitutional monarchy.^[2] Minobe warned that the emperor’s right of supreme command over the military needed to be carefully limited by theDiet of Japan if Japan were not to end up with a dual government in which the military would become completely independent and above therule of law and unaccountable to civilian authority.

From 1924 to 1927, Minobe was the Director of the Faculty of Law at Tokyo Imperial University. From 1911 for 34 years, he was also a counselor in the Bureau of Legislation where he participated in the enactment of several laws. He entered theHouse of Peers by appointment in 1932.

Minobe’s interpretation of the constitution was generally accepted by bureaucrats and even imperial household until the 1930s, although it had been challenged from the beginning by imperial absolutists such asYatsuka Hozumi andShinkichi Uesugi, who held that the emperor was, by definition, the personification of the State itself, and therefore politically unaccountable for his actions, however arbitrary, as defined in Article 3 theMeiji Constitution.

In the increasingly militant environment of the 1930s, Minobe’s liberal interpretation of the role of the emperor came under attack from military officers and ultranationalists increasingly disillusioned byliberal democracy and corruption in government, which they felt could only be addressed through aShōwa Restoration in which the emperor would take personaltotalitarian control. On February 18, 1935, Baron Takeo Kikuchi, a retired general and member of the House of Peers, launched a public campaign to demand thatPrime MinisterKeisuke Okada ban Minobe’s works, which he termed to be “traitorous thoughts”.^[3] Minobe addressed the Diet of Japan a week later in his own defense, whileright-wing groups andKōdōha officers held a demonstration in downtown Tokyo denouncing him. In early March, Major GeneralGenkuro Eto charged in thelower house of the Diet of Japan that Minobe’s books, specificallyKenpo Satsuyo (Compendium of the Constitution) andTsuiho kenpo seigi (Additional Commentaries on the Constitution) were works oflese-majeste, and that Minobe should be arrested.^[4] Bowing to severe political pressure, Okada asked Minobe to resign from his posts later that month, banned some of his works, and initiated a government-sponsored campaign to discredit his works in favor of the tenets supporting the concept of thedivine right of the emperor, which quickly merged withemperor worship and national chauvinism.^[5]

Following thesurrender of Japan afterWorld War II, Minobe was active as an advisor in the creation of the post-warConstitution of Japan, as well as an advisor to the Privy Council.^[6] He died in 1948.

• Bix, Herbert P. (2000).Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York:HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-06-019314-0;OCLC 247018161
• Gordon, Andrew. (2003).A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press.ISBN 9780195110609;ISBN 9780195110616;OCLC 49704795
• Miller, Frank Owen. (1965).Minobe Tatsukichi - Interpreter Of Constitutionalism in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.OCLC 562979985
• Jansen, Marius B. (2000).The Making of Modern Japan. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.ISBN 9780674003347;OCLC 44090600
• Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005).Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5;OCLC 58053128
• MINAMINO Shigeru. (2008, French).MINOBE TatsukichiOlivier Cayla etJean-Louis Halpérin (sous la dir. de), Dictionnaire des grandes oeuvres juridiques, Paris,Dalloz.ISBN 978-2-247-048960;[3]

• National Diet Library Bio

Wikimedia Commons has media related toTatsukichi Minobe.

• 1873 births
• 1948 deaths
• Politicians from Hyōgo Prefecture
• University of Tokyo alumni
• Academic staff of the University of Tokyo
• Scholars of constitutional law
• Members of the House of Peers (Japan)
• Grand Cordons of the Order of the Rising Sun

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Biography articles needing translation from Japanese Wikipedia
• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• Commons category link from Wikidata