Destruction of Evidence

New security legislation laid by Shinzo Abe administration in September was apparent violation of Constitution of Japan, because Cabinet Legislation Bureau had been interpreting the Constitution that exercising collective self-defense right could not be tolerated. Weakening legal stability, the bureau changed its attitude and endorsed new security legislation as constitutional. Everyone had a question on what the reason was and how they discussed it. The bureau left no record about their discussion. If it were the matter of crime, the bureaucrats are guilty for destruction of evidence.

Asahi Shimbun requested CLB to disclose the record related to the decision of new security legislation made in July last year. Although the request was submitted based on Information Disclosure Law, CLB presented only three documents. They were a document about Abe’s consultative committee for the legislation, record about meeting between leading Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito and approval of CLB to answer a question from National Security Bureau that CLB had no opinion about the cabinet decision on exercising collective self-defense. No other documents were disclosed.

The Chief of CLB, Yusuke Yokobatake, admitted that the bureau had a number of discussions over the issue. “In the process of discussion on this issue, we had a various discussion in our bureau,” told Yokobatake in a committee of House of Councillors this June. CLB could not say that they had not discussed the issue. It is likely that they were hiding the truth or simply making a lie.

According to a former officer of the bureau, they sometimes do not leave a record on the issues related to interpretation of constitution. Public Records Management Act demands bureaucrats to leave official record to verify decisions of the executive branch or achievement of policies, except trivial issues. It is obvious that reinterpreting the Constitution is not categorized as a “trivial issue.” CLB has to be suspected as violating the law.

Another possibility is that the constitutional reinterpretation has overwhelmingly been made by Yokobatake alone. Yokobatake was one of the members of undisclosed community for discussing the issue, which members included the leaders of leading parties and bureaucrats on the issue of constitutional interpretation or national security. Discussion over the reinterpretation might mainly be made in that small meeting out of ordinary legal structure in the Cabinet. It is well known that Japanese bureaucrats do anything wrong without public watch.