Eccentric Conclusion by Strange Scholars

Spending over seven years, former bureaucrats, scholars and a businessman released their conclusion on reinterpretation of the Constitution of Japan. What they realized right after the release was their big boss, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, was not satisfied with their effort. A significant part of their report was dismissed by Abe in his press conference three hours after submitting the report to the Premier. All the members were discharged from their duty. Life goes on, you guys.

The final report was submitted by Meeting on Reestablishing Legal Basis of Security. Its chairman, Shunji Yanai, was Japanese Ambassador to the United States at the time of September Eleven Attack in 2001 and coordinated Japan’s support for U.S. War on Terrorism at its very beginning. His deputy, Shin-ichi Kitaoka, is a political scientist and was former Deputy Permanent Representative to U.N. All nine members of the meeting were appointed by Abe and upheld Abe’s idea on necessity of reinterpretation.

Therefore, their conclusion had been apparent from the beginning, which was “Although Japan has not been exercising its right of collective self-defense, it should make it possible in the future.” Actually, the final report said that Article IX of the Constitution did not prohibit exercising it. It unequivocally recommended to reinterpret the Constitution.

However, the reasoning was incredibly simple as a document through theoretical deliberation by security experts. The government of Japan decided few years after the end of the World War II that it could have minimum ability of defending itself and having self-defense force would be allowed. The experts relied on the decision for their reasoning. In short, they said that the Constitution does not prohibit exercising the right of collective self-defense and the government can change its policy, because it did that for establishing Self-defense Force.

Exercising collective self-defense right means that Japan will participate in a war in foreign countries. Firmly fixed interpretation of the Constitution for decades has been that would go beyond the threshold of “minimum” and could not be tolerated. The conclusion of the experts was not something acceptable for Abe’s coalition partner, New Komeito, which professed itself a pacifist party. Abe dismissed the report with political reason.

The members of the Meeting were mainly scholars, who would have been categorized as minorities. Most professors on constitution study are negative on exercising collective self-defense right not only because of interpretation of the provisions, but because traditional interpretation has a legacy to the world. Unfortunately, those scholars will not be able to change their position to the protective for the Constitution forever.