Amendment Discussion Resumes

A month after a sweeping victory in the election of House of Representatives, Liberal Democratic Party restarted internal discussion for constitutional amendment on Thursday. Encouraged by keeping two-third majority of the supporters in the House, the leading party hopes to take initiative of the amendment in the ordinary session next year. However, the argument in LDP has not converged in terms of which provision should be changed. It is nothing more than amendment for amendment.

LDP raised four points for the amendment in their campaign platform: writing down the status of Self-defense Force, adding emergency clause for major disaster, education for free and electoral district along with prefectural border in House of Councillors. The members of Headquarters for Promotion of Constitutional Amendment discussed how to change the provisions for new electoral districts.

Article 47 determines that electoral districts of both Houses shall be fixed by law. LDP argues adding a sentence for electing at least one lawmaker from each prefecture to the Article. They also consider adding a description of making prefecture basic unit of electoral district to Article 92, which determines organization and operations of local public entities.

It is still unclear why constitutional amendment is needed for setting electoral district based on prefecture as a unit. It is possible for lawmakers to achieve it by changing laws and they have actually been doing that. A discussion that they cannot do that without constitutional amendment is a naïve incompetence or intensive negligence of Japanese democracy. Or it may be a grudge against a decision of Supreme Court that recommended removing prefectural borderline to ensure equality of one vote.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pretends not to be interested in constitutional amendment after the election, leaving the discussion to LDP lawmakers. Coalition partner of LDP, Komeito, is very careful about early procedure of the discussion, being afraid of losing support for the party that could partly seen in the last election. Namely, electoral district along with prefectural border is not popular in Komeito or the opposite parties.

The opposite leader, Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, dismisses all of four points of amendment raised by LDP. “It will be alright if it is good change, but if it is bad, we will firmly oppose,” said CDPJ President Yukio Edano. The party definitely opposes determining the status of SDF, arguing that it would approve unconstitutional interpretation of exercising collective self-defense right. Party of Hope and Japan Restoration Party are basically the supporters of LDP, though with some minor difference, in the discussion of constitutional amendment.