Closing without Thorough Review

The National Diet closed its ordinary session of this year on Sunday. The leading parties, Liberal Democratic and Komeito, refrained from extending the term to avoid Diet schedule affecting coming election of Tokyo Metropolitan Congress, which would be voted on July 2^nd. Losing necessary time for discussion, some highly important bills were passed with unilateral power of majority and no thorough review. As its result, despotic dominance of Shinzo Abe administration on Japanese politics looks like enhanced.

Article 52 of Constitution of Japan determines that an ordinary session shall be convoked once per year. The Diet Law rules that the term of an ordinary session is one hundred and fifty days and the term cannot be extended more than once. The ordinary session of this year started on January 20^th and the 150^th day of the session was June 18. The Diet members could extend the term for once, if they needed.

Why did they decide not to extend? It was obviously because Komeito was strongly reluctant to do that. Mostly supported by a denomination of Buddhism, Soka Gakkai, Komeito needs to win in as many districts as possible, because Tokyo is the holy place for Soka Gakkai, where its founding leader, Daisaku Ikeda, was born in. The election of Tokyo Metropolitan Congress will be officially announced on June 23^rd. Komeito did not like the extension of the Diet term to affect their campaign in Tokyo.

The basic strategy not to extend the term hastened Abe administration to pass the bills. In the discussion over Revised Organized Crime Punishment Act, which introduced the concept of conspiracy crime, Abe and his administrative staffs reiterated an explanation that the law needed for success of Tokyo Olympic in 2020. Although the opposite parties repeatedly asked why the government needed power to punish all the people who would look like plotting organized crime, Minister of Justice, Katsutoshi Kaneda, failed to reason it. The bill was passed with unilateral procedure of the leading parties.

Abe kept on escaping from explaining his relationship with two educational corporations, Moritomo Gakuen and Kake Gakuen, both of which had private relationship with Abe. Minister of Defense, Tomomi Inada, escaped from elaborating on concealing diary of Self-defense Force in United Nations peace-keeping operation in South Sudan. Turning his back to the obligation of respecting the Constitution of Japan, Abe revealed his intention of amending the Constitution by 2020. Those issues still needs to be discussed whether they are really indispensable for democracy in Japan.