Undeniable Contradiction

Trying to defend their ill-prepared bills for new security legislation, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Ministers of his Cabinet has been reiterating strange explanation on the issue. The contradiction apparently stemmed from unconstitutionality of the legislature. Intensive deceit to the people that irrelevantly connected maintenance of Japan-U.S. alliance with their personal political agenda is taking its toll.

Asked a comment on current statements of three professors that determined the bills to be unconstitutional, Abe asserted that they were not violating the Constitution of Japan, saying “Basic logic of constitutional interpretation has not been changed at all.” To support his opinion, Abe introduced the decision of Supreme Court on Sunagawa Incident in 1959. “They are not for the purpose of defending other countries and it is obvious that they are abiding by the decision of Supreme Court,” told Abe about the bills.

It was crucial mistake of Abe. His administration firstly tried to use the court decision as a basic reason for the cabinet decision for exercising collective self-defense right last July. But, with firm resistance of Komeito, the administration changed the basic ground for collective self-defense to the governmental opinion in 1972, which recognized necessity of measures for self-defense. Nevertheless, Abe reversed the reasoning to Sunagawa Incident.

The decision on the incident was not about constitutionality of collective self-defense right, but about stationing of American troops in a town. And the governmental opinion in 1972 unequivocally determined that exercising collective self-defense was not what the constitution tolerated. Neither of those two past interpretations of the constitution, anyway, is appropriate for justifying the security legislation.

Abe’s colleagues also made miserable failures. Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, told that there were many scholars on constitutional study who think the bills to be constitutional. Few days later, when a lawmaker with Democratic Party of Japan asked Suga to name those scholars, he could refer to only three professors, and said “It is not about number.” Well, it was him who said there were “many” scholars. Many is a word about number.

Minister of Defense, Gen Nakatani, is mostly doubted on his integration as a Minister. “If the situation around Japan changes in the future, interpretation of the constitution can be changed again,” told Nakatani. It made significant contradiction to a statement of Director General of Cabinet Legislation Bureau, Yusuke Yokobatake, that expansion of constitutional interpretation will “absolutely be impossible.” In Nakatani’s mind, meaning of the provisions of Constitution of Japan might be changing day by day.