Unimaginable Situation of Crisis

Shinzo Abe administration suffers from a contradiction that it has created in security policy. While it had made new security legislation a few years ago, the administration argued that the legislation was baseless in a lawsuit of a member of Japan Self-defense Force. In the discussion of the Diet, the opposite parties accuse Abe administration of its double standard.

 

One member of Ground Self-defense Force in his duty made a lawsuit in March 2016, in which he demanded a confirmation of no need of obeying the order of defense mobilization in “situation of existential crisis.” Situation of existential crisis was a concept created by Abe administration as possible security crisis of Japan as serious as it would no longer exist, when it explained the reason of making new security legislation.

 

The administration tried to dismiss the plaintiff’s argument by saying that there was no occurrence of situation of existential crisis so far and it was unimaginable for the situation to occur in the future as long as having watched international security environment. It also explained that situation of existential crisis brought by collision between United States and North Korea was an abstract hypothesis.

 

In the discussion at Committee of Budget in House of Representatives earlier this month, President of Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Yukio Edano, made an argument that Abe administration had raised double standard between in the court and in the Diet. “You hastened the passage of new security legislation as saying that situation of existential crisis might occur immediately,” told Edano, “and you also argued that such a situation would not actually occur in the court.”

 

Prime Minister Abe raised possible cases of situation of existential crisis for new security legislation. They included military attack on a ship that was in an operation for defending Japan or Japanese citizens in the contingency of Korean Peninsula or blockade with floating mines in Hormuz Strait where tankers for Japan would pass. According to the explanation of Abe administration, those kinds of crisis cannot actually happen.

 

The administration appealed in the court that neither occurrence of situation of existential crisis nor issuance of defense mobilization was unimaginable. While the first court dismissed the complaint, the appeal court returned the case to the first court with an opinion that the argument of Abe administration could not be adopted in accordance with past argument in the Diet. The case raised a serious question that Abe administration degraded pacifism in Constitution of Japan with new security legislation for dealing with unimaginable situation.