Seven Categories of Security Legislation

Discussion between two leading parties, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, on security legislations is converging to seven categories. While LDP is offensive in vesting unlimited power on Japanese Self-defense Force, Komeito, disguising itself as a party for peace, is showing reluctance to expand activities of JSDF. Komeito actually no power to deter warmongering LDP, because it had already threw away an option to divorce with LDP on this issue early last year. It is simply a machine of endorsement what LDP is doing.

The discussion is categorized into 1) protection of weapons owned by countries other than United States, 2) fundamental amendment of Peripheral Situation Law, 3) permanent legislation of dispatching SDF, 4) SDF’s activities for international peace, 5) rescuing Japanese citizens in foreign country, 6) amendment of Ship Inspection Law and 7) legislation of collective self-defense right.

In the situation just before Japan is attacked, Japan can only protect weapons of United States in current laws. New legislation will allow JSDF to protect other’s weapons without violating the Constitution that prohibits participation in other country’s war. In the idea of LDP, Peripheral Situation Law will be amended getting rid of geographical limitation of JSDF’s activity, which has been contained in Far East region.

While JSDF is designated to only protect Japan’s homeland, new permanent law for JSDF is supposed to be support foreign forces in overseas. In peace-keeping operation of United Nations, Japanese government is considering easing restriction of use of weapons for JSDF. While it is not clear about how to get achievement, Japanese government is also discussing about sending JSDF to foreign country to rescue Japanese people suffering from terrorism. Coercive inspection for foreign ships is aimed at piracy in some regions. And lastly, collective self-defense right is to symbolize Japan’s new stage for international security.

All those seven issues are something strictly prohibited by interpretation of the Constitution for a long time in post-war era in Japan. Komeito has been trying to set a limitation for those activities in new legislations. However, LDP knows well that Komeito can be appeased, when LDP says “Get out of our coalition.” Komeito is always afraid of someone who can replace its position. It is mainly conservative Innovation Party, which has close relationship with Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe.

So, the discussion is like a kabuki show. Result is apparent: happy end. One possible disturbance for LDP is not Komeito’s protest, but foreign audience who has power to stop the show, say United States.

Education on Sovereign People

Multi-partisan coalition submitted on Thursday a bill for lowering the age of voting in national and local election to the Diet. Young people in the age of eighteen and nineteen will newly be able to vote in election of House of Councillors next year, if the bill passes. Leaders of Shinzo Abe administration look serious about educating young voters to teach what it means to be sovereign people. The reason is to achieve new votes amounting to 2.4 millions.

The bill had been considered along with the process of paving the way for amending the Constitution of Japan. There had not been a law determining actual process for general voting about the amendment until 2007. The General Voting Law for constitutional amendment decided that the vote should be done by the people with the age of eighteen or older. But, there appeared an argument that the difference of voting age between general voting for constitutional amendment and for ordinary elections must be eliminated. The result was to lower the voting age of elections to eighteen.

The biggest question then was contradiction with the age of adult, which was still twenty. Juveniles Act determines that justice for juveniles committed crime should be examined in family court. If a voter in the age of eighteen or nineteen committed illegal activity in election campaign, when election age was lowered, he or she would be treated as juvenile. It would be possible for campaign managers to hire more juveniles whose penalty would be lighter than adults for illegal activities. To compensate this gap, the new law assumes that serious crime of juveniles in the election will be examined as ordinary crime with prosecutors. The important point is whether legal violation in election campaign should be treated as atrocious crime like murder, burglar or arson.

To lead young voters to right direction, leaders of Abe administration are focusing on education on them. “It is important to edit side reader to help students obtain political neutrality determined in Fundamentals of Education Act and let them positively participate in election,” told Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga. Nobody in the administration has, however, defined “political neutrality” in education on sovereign people. This term is rather used for restraining leftist education by teachers’ union.

Strangely enough, conservative lawmakers are reluctant to render voting right to juveniles, doubting independence of Japanese young people. Others always demand heavy penalty on juveniles, every time serious crime by them happens. No fundamental discussion of raising responsible young agers has been made so far. If they want to teach their children well, they need to establish a society with justice, without discriminative hate speech, unfair gap between rich and poor, or political maneuver unleashed from the Constitution.

Premier in Money Scandal

A series of money scandal reached the top political leader of Japan. Media revealed that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had received money from the companies, which had issued subsidy from national government. Political Funds Control Law prohibits politicians to accept donation from company with subsidy from national government within a year from the day of notice. Abe’s answer to the questions in the Diet was “I didn’t know that.” It is not good for Japanese people to educate their children in a circumstance that their top political leader uses such a cheap shot to excuse his laziness.

According to a balance sheet of Fourth Branch of Yamaguchi Prefecture of Liberal Democratic Party, which was represented by Abe, the branch received ¥120 thousands of donation from a company for water processing in Osaka in September, 2012. The company was notified about subsidy from Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry three months before. Another company was a common name in cement makers, called Ube Industries, Ltd. It donated ¥500 thousands to the branch in December, 2013, eight months after notification of ¥31 millions of subsidy from METI.

Political Funds Control Law has an exception of regulation on subsidy for research and development or other non-profit purposes. The exception might be applied to the donation to Abe. “About some of the donations, we have realized that they were not related to profit,” told Abe. But basically, he knew a little about donations to him. “According to Prime Minister, it was true that he received the donations. But he did not know about the fact that those companies had received subsidy,” told Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga.

Ministers of Abe Cabinet have been precipitated in a quagmire of money scandal. Following resignation of two Ministers last fall, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Koya Nishikawa, stepped down with questionable donation from regional companies. Abe’s scandal has the same nature as Nishikawa’s. If Abe approved Nishikawa’s resignation, he needs to step down to take responsibility of losing political credibility of the people.

Simultaneously, the same story was revealed in the opposite party. President of Democratic Party of Japan, Katsuya Okada, had received donation as questionable as Abe’s. All parties became serious about sprawling money scandals at last. Leading and opposite parties are discussing measures to prevent those doubtful reception of political donations. Actual idea is to amend Political Funds Control Law to adjust with actual activities of politicians, attributing the scandal to insufficiency of the law. Effective solution for those politicians dependent on money should be only one: prohibiting all kinds of donations from companies or organizations.

Japanese Version of CIA

The lesson for ordinary people at the kidnapping of a Japanese journalist by Islamic State was danger of reaching terrorists. For government of Japan, it was the failure of collecting information about the terrorist organization. To compensate it, the government is considering establishment of new spy agency. Japanese government ignores a fact that it was impossible even for United States, with the world strongest spy agency, could not save the lives of the Americans. Another fact was that it was a failure of Japanese diplomats to collect information through ordinary activities in foreign countries. The political leaders attribute all of their failures to governmental structure.

After the Japanese hostages were killed, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe raised a committee to verify the incident. Most people expected that the committee was to review the process of saving the hostages and make clear who was responsible for. Against that assumption, the outcome was not about responsibility of the government, but structural review to reinforce governmental power.

There are nine agencies in Japanese government to deal with intelligence in overseas. New agency is supposed to integrate them, resembling the discussion in U.S., when it established Director of Homeland Security. But the crucial point in U.S. was whether the related governmental organizations, Departments of State and Defense, Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, would cooperate each other beyond their borders. It is Japan that apparently has higher walls between ministries than in U.S.

The government of Japan has already established an organization called Terrorism Response Team in National Police Agency after an incident of terrorists’ occupation of Japanese Embassy in Peru in 1996. But, Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not cooperative with the team even in the time of September Eleventh attack in U.S., to disappointment for political leaders. Struggle over hegemony to deal with foreign intelligence will continue even after new agency will be settled.

Basically, what is new agency doing for intelligence? It is difficult for Japanese agents to make hidden operations in Middle East countries. For them, it is easier to take secret actions in Asian countries, in China for example. Is Japan ready to get involved in all-out intelligence war with China? It is unlikely. As a result of elimination, true purpose of intelligence agency has to be expanding governmental power and sneaking into Japanese people’s life.

Overprotection to Consumers

The reason why Japanese Civil Law raised legal age from traditional fifteen to twenty was to integrate with Western economic custom, which determined the age of responsible for commercial contracts. Now, even the adults in Japan are recognized as vulnerable in commercial activities. The Council for Legislation, a consultative body of Minister of Justice, submitted a report on reviewing Civil Law, which focused on protecting consumers. The policy may make the people more ignoring about contracts and less independent.

One example is deposit in renting a house. Because there was no rule about deposit written in Civil Law, troubles always happened between landlord and tenant. They included demand of payment more than deposit or request of compensation for changing wallpaper stained by cigarette smoke. With the review of the council, Civil Law will include provisions about definition of renting deposit, timing of return the deposit or maximum payment of tenant. The law will prohibit landlord to demand payment without tenant’s error.

There is also no rule in the law about terms of contract. As seen in other nations, Japanese people are reluctant in reading through terms of contract. In internet shopping or contract for insurance, a buyer is required to accept terms of contract, which is written in small letters on pages. There were troubles over some description secretly inserted by seller. New rule will dismiss a contract that is unilaterally disadvantageous to buyer. Changing terms of contract can be done only when it leads to the benefit of consumer

If a man drinks a lot in a bar and put his payment on his charge account, the credit will be invalid in one year in current law. That expiration will be extended to five years in new rule. It is for integrating all kinds of prescription to five years. Two-year expiration for counseling fee to lawyer, three-year expiration for payment for medical treatment and payments in all other cases will be extended to five years. That may not be the protection of consumers, anyway.

It is necessary for disabled old people to be protected by law from malicious contractors. A lot of thefts have been reported to police, in which victims lost great amount of money. However, the more the government overprotects the people, the less they become immune to carpetbaggers. It is important to distinguish the people who really need to be protected from independent economic activities with appropriate assessment on contracts.

Civillian Staffs Control

Forging concept is frequent method of bureaucrats when they deceive innocent people. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for some reason likes it. In explaining responsibility of Japanese government in recruiting comfort women, he admitted responsibility in broad meaning, while denying it in narrow meaning. In short, he tried to say that the government had not directly recruited, synonym of human trafficking, comfort women, but it might be responsible for leaving those brothels operate around the military camps. Now, Abe administration is creating new concept in civilian control.

Ministry of Defense is considering an amendment of Ministry of Defense Settlement Act, to equalize the status between its civilian and military staffs. The law determines that civilian staffs assist the job of Minister of Defense to make an order to chiefs of military staffs. The concept is called “civilian staffs control,” consisting a part of civilian control on military officers. The ministry is trying to delete the provision about civilian staffs control to expand, or maybe unleash, the power of military.

Based on firm regret on excessive power vested on military officers in wartime, the Constitution of Japan requires the government strict civilian control. It is interpreted as the power of legislators, properly elected, to always put the military under control. Under the Constitution, Prime Minister or other members of Cabinet have to be civilians. The supreme commander of Self-defense Force needs to be Prime Minister. In the system of Japanese government, there has been a concrete structure of civilian control.

The amendment of Ministry of Defense Settlement Act is an attempt to extract “civilian staffs control” from “civilian control.” Leaders of the ministry assert that civilian control will be maintained, even if civilian staffs control is lost. Minister of Defense, Gen Nakatani, a former staff of Self-defense Force, even denied the significance of the provision of civilian staffs control. When the reporters asked him whether the provision had been made for not repeating wartime military excessiveness, he answered “I don’t think that way.” “I don’ really know about it, because I was born after the provision was made,” he also explained. This minister seems to know nothing about what happened before he was born.

This is what Japanese officer is all about. In current militarization under Abe administration, military section of Japanese government is getting pretentious, regarding themselves as something invincible. Bureaucrats put moral obligation aside, when they find, or fabricate, appropriate cause to do a thing. There is no hint of self-restriction in military to win a firm credibility from the public.

Murder in Juvenile Delinquency

A murder of a teenager group in Kawasaki city, Kanagawa, shook Japan. High school students killed a mid-school student of thirteen years old at riverside on Tamagawa in the midnight. The victim had been sending signs requiring help. His friends and people in the community regretted their indifference on them only in vain. The suspected killers looked like ordinary students in appearance. Some Sicknesses of Japanese society exist in the incident.

The victim moved from a small island offshore of Shimane to Kawasaki two yeas ago. He had been popular to his classmates, with his bright smile and determination to basketball club. After half of a year passed from his entrance in a mid-school, he joined a juvenile delinquency group with an introduction of a man twenty years old. Many people witnessed the victim, when he was with those high school students in a park late at night.

The victim tried to get out of the group many times, tired of being forced to commit thefts in shops and wanting to get back to school, where he had been absent from the beginning of this year. “I can be killed, because I resisted to elder members,” he told in his LINE message to his friend. But the leader of the group, eighteen-year-old ex-student of a high school, did not allow it. Nobody including the victim could resist the leader’s order, because he was too brutal toward his colleagues.

The murder was actually nothing but brutal. The killer striped all of the victim’s clothes, and deeply stubbed his throat. One report indicated that the killer let the victim stand on his knees and cut his throat, reminding of the execution of hostages by Islamic State. They burnt the clothes in a public restroom located in a park nearby to erase evidence of the crime.

Responses of the society were regrets on not noticing the victim’s help. The classmates visited the place he was killed and put flowers on the land with messages of “We will not forget you” or “I’m sorry.” But, those messages cannot compensate a lost life. The victim will never come back. Every word of regret, apology or anger is vain after he was dead. His friends, relatives, teachers and people in regional community need to understand that no action brings no achievement.

Politicians are always hungry for their own interest. The policy leader of Liberal Democratic Party indicated that the party might be starting discussion for lowering the age of adult from twenty to eighteen. That was pointless. It is how to construct a society in which people are curious about happiness of each other and communicate each other without hesitation.