Hozumi Yatsuka

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Hozumi Yatsuka (穂積 八束) was a Japanese lawyer and scholar born on March 20, 1860, in Ehime Prefecture. He studied at the University of Tokyo and, after graduation, went to Germany in 1884 to learn about European constitutional law. He studied at Heidelberg, Berlin, and Strasbourg, where he was influenced by the legal thinker Paul Laband. He returned to Japan in 1889 and gradually moved from strict legal positivism toward ideas that connected law with Japan’s traditions, including ancestor worship and the family state.

Hozumi is best known for giving a clear legal meaning to kokutai, the concept of the nation’s supreme structure. He also introduced seitai (the government’s organization) and kodoshin (loyalty to the sovereign), and he spoke of godo seizon (an amalgamated existence of person and state). He argued that sovereignty in Japan rests with the emperor in a monarchy, while in democracy sovereignty lies with the people. He distinguished two kinds of constitutions: an authorized constitution, created by a sovereign, and a national contract constitution, arising from an agreement among sovereign individuals.

He linked kokutai to the idea of a family-state and argued that universalist beliefs like Buddhism, Christianity, and Confucianism weakened Japan’s primordial social order. He believed Japan’s greatness came from the divine and hereditary authority of the emperor and saw the Meiji Constitution as an authorized constitution appropriate to Japan’s kokutai. His interpretations shaped thinking about the Japanese state and the Meiji Constitution until 1945. Hozumi Yatsuka died on October 5, 1912.