Law 63

• Date: 1896
• Japanese: 六三法 (rokusan hou)

Law 63 was a law passed through the National Diet in 1896 which granted the Governor-General of Taiwan the power to generate new legislation for application within Taiwan.

The passage of Law 63 generated considerable recurring opposition against it, chiefly among the more liberal members of the government, who deemed it unconstitutional, since the Meiji Constitution declared that only the Diet had law-making power. Eventually, the Law was modified, tempering the power of the Taiwanese Governor-General; however, the Governor-General of Korea retained these unilateral legislative powers.

References

• Mark Peattie, "Japanese Attitudes toward Colonialism, 1895-1945," in Peattie and Ramon Myers (eds.), The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895-1945, Princeton University Press (1984), 101.