Oppressive Procedure for Oppression Bill

It was embarrassingly ugly scene for the House of Representatives to introduce an nuclear option in this highly nuclearphobic country. The leading parties, Liberal Democratic and New Komeito, passed the Designated Secrecy Bill with their own majority and support of Your Party, dismissing the opposite’s requests for further discussion. This highly oppressive law seems to be activated with oppressive legislative procedure by oppressive administration led by Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe.

It was nothing more than a soap opera. After all parties finished their questions to PM, the Chairman of Special Committee on National Security, Fukushiro Nukaga, declared taking vote for the bill. Surrounded by committee members of the opposite parties yelling accusation, Nukaga asked standing up for aye, and the bill passed with majority of three parties. Having stepped down as Defense Minister by internal scandal of Defense Agency years ago, Nukaga might want to restrict leaking information which would lead to resignation of a minister.

Conservative Restoration Party, basically close to LDP, was divided in two over the bill. Its legislators close to Mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, who had been admiring Abe, wanted to vote aye. But, the party leaders in the House who joined the party from Democratic Party of Japan refused to easily follow LDP, requiring more time for discussion. They stepped out from the voting for the bill, to which they joined amendment process. Restoration party consequently appealed nothing to the public. It is also not forgettable that DPJ left mostly no footstep on the legislative process of the bill.

The nature of the bill is simple. It is something like allowing a policeman upgrading his weapon from pistol to machinegun. There actually is no restriction for him to whom, for what reason and in which circumstance he uses it. Whether or not he uses is up to him. He is comfortable by the fact that he can use his weapon at anytime. In other words, it is the Bureaucrats Comforting Bill, unnecessary expanding their power. Nobody calls it democracy, but strange bureaucracy one can hardly find anywhere else in the world.

The request of the United States must have restricting bureaucrats to reveal crucial security information, based on the skepticisms against their ability for preserving security. As its result, bureaucrats vested their burden to the people, by changing the nature of the issue into restricting accesses to governmental information. It is fair to say that consecutive pressure of U.S. to ask Japan positive involvements in security issues distorted Japanese democracy, which U.S. must have wanted Japan to maintain.