Isolated Argument of Amendment

Frustrated with slow progress of discussion over constitutional amendment in the Diet, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe began to lead the process of discarding Constitution of Japan. Main target is Article 9, which characterizes its uniqueness in seeking permanent peace. It is highly unusual for a Japanese Prime Minister to argue changing the article in the Diet. That is because Article 99 requires all the public officials, obviously including Prime Minister, to respect the Constitution.

Recognizing strangeness for Prime Minister to argue changing the Constitution, Abe insisted that he was talking about it as the President of Liberal Democratic Party, not Prime Minister. “I made it as President of LDP to make the discussion among the parties active. I hope them to make active discussion in Commissions on the Constitution in both Houses,” told Abe in his explanation on his announcement of changing Article 9 and activation of new constitution in 2020 on the Constitution’s Day earlier this month.

The opposite parties blamed Abe’s inappropriate intervention in the discussion over the constitutional amendment in the Diet. Even the leaders in LDP on constitutional issues criticized Abe’s unilateral advance to the amendment, leaving behind accumulated discussion on Article 9 in the party. The Chairman of Commission on the Constitution in House of Representatives, Yasukazu Hamada with LDP, chided Abe into not making inappropriate statement, when Abe defied a question about the amendment and requested to refer to a newspaper article about his announcement.

Abe insisted on the definition of Self-defense Force in the Constitution. “The first thing we have to take on is about Self-defense Force,” argued Abe in House of Councillors, “and it is a responsibility of our generation to change the situation that a number of scholars on constitution argues unconstitutionality of the Force.” Abe has proposed adding Section 3 about Self-defense Force in Article 9, leaving other two Sections untouched.

To the argument of Abe that discussion over the Constitution is matured, the opposite parties insist that the discussion in the commissions has not finished at all. With firm conviction that no other administration can change the Constitution forever, Abe unilaterally tries to accelerate the discussion, setting time period for new constitution. Abe has two-third majority in both Houses, which is necessary for the initiative of referendum for constitutional amendment. However, the majority was not obtained with thorough discussion over the amendment, but with ambiguous expectation for economic improvement in Abe administration.