House of Peers

Under the Meiji Constitution, the Imperial Diet was organized as a bicameral legislature consisting of the House of Representatives and the House of Peers. The House of Peers served as a non-elected upper chamber composed of members of the peerage and imperial appointees, among others. With the promulgation and subsequent enforcement of the Constitution of Japan in 1947, the House of Peers was abolished and replaced by the House of Councillors, whose members were elected through a popular electoral system. As part of the postwar democratization of Japan, the House of Councillors came to be conceived as a “chamber of good sense (良識の府),” assuming a role distinct from that of the House of Representatives.