The extraordinary Diet session convened on
October 15 closed last
week on December 8. Although it had been
scheduled to close on
December 6, raucous protests from the
opposition to the controversial
state secrets bill entailing stricter
penalty on information leaks by
government employees paralyzed
discussions in the Upper House, leading
to that the ruling bloc weren’t able to hold voting on the bill on
that day. The ruling bloc of the Liberal
Democratic Party and New
Komeito, in fear of seeing the bills
drop in this session for overdue,
had no choice but to extend the session
for two days. The motion to
extend was proposed and approved in the
Lower House plenary session on
December 6.
*The state of deliberations in both
Houses and committees are
available from the following websites.(Japanese only)
Live broadcasts and video recordings of the
deliberations in the
House of Councillors：http://www.webtv.sangiin.go.jp/
Over the special intelligence protection bill,
toward the end of
session, the opposition camp including
Your Party and Japan
Restoration Party, once agreed on the
bill in consultations, released
a joint announcement requesting the
government for thorough discussion
on the bill, and DPJ, Social Democratic
Party and People’s Life Party
jointly took a confrontational tactic of
moving a motion to dismiss
the Upper House Rules and Administration
Committee Chairman Iwaki of
LDP. The ruling camp, in eye of pushing
the bill through as soon as
possible, ignored the oppositions’ move and processed necessary
procedures one after another, such as
interpellation with academic
references on Dec 3 and local hearing on
Dec 4.
On December 4, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
unveiled his idea to
establish within the Cabinet Secretariat
an “information preservation
advisory panel” and an “information preservation
oversight office”
to check appropriateness of designating
information as secret and its
removal and to sketch unified standards
for designation respectively.
Abe explained that Prime Minister
receives reports from the office,
comprised of vice-minister-class
officials, then Prime Minister
consults with the experts’ panel every year. Also, an administrator’
s post for public document archives and
records will establish to
handle the information designated as
state secret. While Abe insisted
this is a multilayered scheme to prevent
arbitrary designations of
special intelligence, Banri Kaieda,
leader of DPJ, strongly criticized
the idea as an information-hiding body
composed of bureaucrats.
The ruling bloc rushed the bill to a vote in
the evening of December
5 in the Upper House Special Committee
on National Security, which
approved the bill by majority amid
roaring by opposition lawmakers. In
the meantime, in the revision
consultations meetings among the ruling
bloc and JRP and Your Party, for the
opposition from JRP that the
panel could not be regarded as a
third-party monitoring organization
suggested by JRP, the parties reaffirmed
to establish another
monitoring body within the Cabinet
Office. Therefore, there will be
two ‘third-party’ organizations in the
government. The details will
be subject of further discussions until
the enforcement of the
legislation. Also, the parties agreed to
establish a monitoring body
in the Diet by exchanging document.
The bill was accordingly put onto agenda of
the Upper House plenary
session, though, the ruling coalition
decided to delay voting on Dec 6
for the vigorous confrontation by the
opposition camp. Opposition
parties had called for further
deliberation and made last-ditch
efforts to block passage, including
posing a no-confidence motion
against Abe's Cabinet earlier Friday,
After that motion was voted down
in the more powerful House of
Representatives, the ruling bloc rushed
the bill to a vote in the upper house
which it also controls. JRP and
Your Party boycotted voting. The bill
will be promulgated within this
month and will be enforced within a year
from the day of promulgation.
The Cabinet sets forth a preparatory
office in the Cabinet Secretariat
and accelerate preparation measures
toward implementation of the
legislation.
On the other hand, LDP Secretary-General
Shigeru Ishiba instructed
the party’s Policy Research Council to give considerations on an
establishment of monitoring body in the
Diet to prevent arbitrary
designation of state secrets.
Discussions will be undertaken within
the ruling party, in eye of drafting
bill for the next year’s Diet
session. Sources said that it will take
form of amendments to the
current Diet act which has the provision
with regard to
‘secret-meetings’ also stipulated in the Constitution. The ruling
coalition will call for opposition
parties also to participate in
discussions.
Being influenced by an imbroglio over the
special intelligence
protection bill, discussions over the
bill to create National
Strategic Special Zones for economic
growth had been suspended since
Nov 26 in the Upper House Cabinet
Committee chaired by DPJ member. DPJ
had repeatedly rejected ruling coalition’s requests to hold meetings
of the Committee by taking the bill as
hostage to extend the session.
Finally, the ruling coalition moved a
motion of no-confidence against
the Chair Mizuoka on Dec 4 in the Upper
House plenary session, and
passed the motion on the next day. The
Chairperson was replaced by
Shoko Santo of LDP, and the bill was
approved in the Committee on Dec
6 and enacted on 7.
The bill to boost the country’s industrial competitiveness was also
pended after being approved in the Upper
House Economy and Industry
Committee. For this reason, the Chairman
of Upper House Rules and
Administration Committee Iwaki held
plenary session of the Upper House
with his authority on Dec 4, when the
bill was passed into legislation.
Given the passage of the bill, the
government schedules to have its
three-year implementation plans approved
by the Cabinet as early as New Year.
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