Background
Gustave Boissonade was born in 1825.
Gustave Boissonade was born in 1825.
He was a brilliant law student, and received his doctorate of law with honours from the University of Paris in 1853. He was in charge of law courses at Paris University until 1864, and was assistant law professor at the University of Grenoble until 1867.
In 1873 he was invited to lecture on constitutional and criminal law to some Japanese visitors to Paris, and received an invitation to work in Japan by the Japanese Ministry of Justice as one of several foreign legal scholars needed to assist with the drafting of Japan's legal codes and in the renegotiation of the unequal treaties.
Boissonade remained in Japan for more than 21 years, from 1873 to 1895, and worked as an instructor in the Law School of the Ministry of Justice. He worked closely with Ume Kenjirō and Hozumi Nobushige in drafting much of Japan's criminal and civil law. He was also an expert in international law, and was legal advisor to the government in the Taiwan Expedition of 1874. He was named a consultant to the Genroin in 1875. He also opposed Inoue Kaoru's 1887 proposal to allow non-Japanese judges, and cautioned against too rapid movement towards revision of the unequal treaties.
He came to Japan in the early part of the Meiji Era (1873) and did much to frame Japan's legal laws. He drafted in 1879 the civil law which was promulgated in 1890. The penal code which was promulgated and came into force between 1881-1908 was drafted by him in 1880. It was he who first took the initiative in putting stop to third degree methods used by officers in those days to get confessions out of prisoners and suspects.
Today, he is honored as one of the founders of Hosei University. The "Boissonade Tower", the Ichigaya campus of Hosei University halfway between Ichigaya and Iidabashi stations in central Tokyo, a 26-story building completed in 2000, was named after him.
