Violent Majority

In the Diet of Japan, procedures of bills have been controlled by the majority consisted of Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito these days. That tendency raised a fundamental question over how democracy could be maintained. Those parties have legitimacy to pass bills along with the principle of rule of majority. However, is it right for a majority to decide everything through voting without sufficient discussion, even ignoring minority? Does this undemocratic majority in the Diet has full legitimacy in dealing with the Designated Secrecy Bill?

Among persistent campaign of newspapers that criticized the bill as undemocratic, Yomiuri keeps its unique position. In an article written by a senior correspondent, titled “Who destroys democracy?” it argues that rejection of majority rule is wrong. Acknowledging an argument on destruction of democracy, the article opposes the argument because it may unconstitutionally go against the will of majority, if the opinion of minority would be prioritized. “It is a rule of democracy to take votes in the end. Rejecting it is a despotism of minority,” it said.

This argument distorts the discussion in two ways. First, protestors have basically been criticizing the nature of the bill, not procedure in the Diet. They have been saying that the bill was undemocratic, because it would violate human rights to access information. Because the procedure has been undemocratic, in addition, they also started opposing the way leading parties were dealing with the bill. It is necessary for Yomiuri to discuss whether the bill would protect human rights before flaunting knowledge on basic principles of democracy written in the Constitution.

Second, the discussion in the Diet has not ended. There still remain questionable points of the bill, including how arbitrary registration of “designated secrets” could be excluded by checking organizations established within the government, or how the secrets would be selected as archives or disposed. Leading parties unilaterally declared the end of the discussion and took votes to get a conclusion. Paying utmost attention to minority is basic principle of democracy and the procedure derailed the discussion from democracy.

Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, and his followers in LDP are trying to direct this nation to old top-down society led by the Emperor. In this kind of society, no diversity of opinions is respected and paternal doctrines are prevalent, making gap between the rulers and the ruled wider than ever. It is fair to say that PM is going to be a divider in chief indeed.