Death or Three Hundred Years in Prison

The discussion is escalating to the level as if the Liberal Democratic Party is amending the Constitution for applying death penalty or three hundred years in prison to a person who rejects a call for mobilization. The General Secretary of LDP, Shigeru Ishiba, told in a TV show that penalty would be strictly applied by martial court, which would be installed in the national defense force established after the amendment. Even though Ishiba does not intend to kill a man of conscientious objection, someone else would be able to do it, if the constitution is amended.

While the TV show was aired three months ago, his discussion spread after Tokyo Shimbun picked the issue this week. “There is no guarantee that no man would say ‘I don’t want to go’ to the call of mobilization for protecting the independence of our state,” he said in a TV discussion to explain what martial court was about. “If he does not obey it, the heaviest penalty in the state will be applied. That should be death penalty in a country with death penalty, life in prison in a country with the penalty of life in prison, and three hundred years in prison in a country with the penalty of three years in prison” he added.

Men and women in the Self-defense force take the oath of obeying orders in contingency. Ishiba must have thought that it was insufficient for maintaining internal order in the Self-defense Force. But, he was not credible enough for the people, because he has been showing attitude as a military freak. As the Minister of Defense, he appealed that his hobby was crafting battleship models. That rendered people an image that he was a virtual military-lover free from reality.

The Constitution gives jurisdiction only to the court and the court system consists of three layers system with supreme, high, and regional. “The whole judicial power is vested in a supreme court and in such inferior courts as are established by law. No extraordinary tribunals shall be established, nor shall any organ or agency of the executive be given final judicial power,” says the Article 76 of the Constitution. To establish martial court, constitutional amendment is required.

The question here is whether LDP leaders require the amendment to deal with real threats from neighbor countries or to shape this country up as militarized. As for China, for example, even the United States has not fully determined the intention of its building up of military power. It is unlikely for LDP to have precisely identified China as a threat to Japan, to the extent that Japan needs to prepare for its invasion. LDP looks like too much afraid of China’s intimidation.