Japan’s National Diet passes law allowing Emperor Akihito to abdicate within three years
Monday, June 12, 2017 On Friday, Japan's parliament, the National Diet, passed a law to allow Emperor Akihito to abdicate. The law gives Akihito three years to become the first emperor to abdicate since Emperor Kokaku in 1817, two hundred years ago. The newly passed law, made in response to the country's Imperial Household Law's lack of abdication provisions, applies to only Akihito, aged 83. It prohibits Akihito's successors from abdicating. Akihito ascended to the 2,000-year-old Chrysanthemum Throne when his father Emperor Hirohito died in 1989. Having a cardiac surgery