The Diet on Wednesday passed an amendment effectively scrapping a six-month ban on the remarriage of newly divorced women, putting an end to the century-old tradition that had been slammed as sexist.

In what will become a historic policy shift, the amendment enables women to remarry immediately after divorce, on condition they are not pregnant upon the dissolution of their marriage.

With an estimated 90 percent of potential divorcees not pregnant at the time of filing, the revision will virtually end what the Supreme Court last year labeled as an "excessive restriction" on women's rights.

For pregnant women, the waiting period will be shortened from the current 180 days to 100, as per the top court ruling. On Wednesday, the Upper House unanimously enacted the amendment.

The revision was submitted by the Justice Ministry following last December's landmark Supreme Court ruling that found the six-month ban "unconstitutional." The prohibition had originally been introduced in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) to avoid confusion over the paternity of children born immediately after a divorce.

However, the top court said the six-month waiting period was "no longer necessary" in light of modern advancements such as early pregnancy detection and DNA tests.

"This is a historic amendment," said Tomoshi Sakka, an Okayama-based lawyer. Sakka represented a woman in her 30s in the victorious Supreme Court challenge of the law.

In graying Japan, where widows are becoming more and more common, hopes for a second marriage are "incomparably higher than a century ago," Sakka said, adding that the revision will finally bring the law — enacted in 1898 — up to date.

The amendment was one of a raft of legal changes enacted during the latest Diet session, which wrapped up Wednesday.

Among these was Japan's first-ever anti-hate speech bill, which sought to eliminate what it called "unjustly discriminatory" language directed at ethnic minorities. That legislation was the brainchild of lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito coalition.

Although it is the first such law, critics have blasted it as toothless in that it fails to outlaw hate speech, let alone penalize those engage in it.

Other highlights include an amendment mandating for the first time ever the recording of certain police and prosecution interrogations, which is seen as a bid to improve transparency in a criminal justice system critics have called overly reliant on confessions — sometimes taken coercively — from suspects.

The Diet also enacted a package of bills aimed at redressing vote-value disparities plaguing Lower House elections. That legislation will trim the number of Lower House seats by 10 to a postwar low of 465, including in sparsely populated prefectures such as Aomori, Iwate and Mie, to better reflect voices of residents in urban areas.

Supreme Court rulings had repeatedly declared the vote-value gap as being "in a state of unconstitutionality."

On the trade front, the Diet decided to forgo a swift ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement with the United States and other Pacific-Rim economies after deliberations were delayed by the mega-quake that rocked Kumamoto Prefecture, as well as by fierce resistance from opposition lawmakers.

After its inauguration in early January, this year's Diet session opened to persistent questioning from opposition lawmakers of a cash-for-favors scandal involving then-economy minister Akira Amari, a close ally of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Amari resigned later that month.

This was but the opening salvo by the opposition, as it wasted no opportunity to pick holes in the Abe government's policies throughout the session. In one memorable example, opposition lawmakers slammed Abe for his tepid response toward boosting child-rearing support after an anonymous blog post penned by an angry Tokyo mother complaining of Japan's day care center shortage went viral