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| National Diet Building (Image: Flickr User - Junpei Abe) |
By Mina Pollmann
With the 60-day rule, the Diet juggles technicalities and the LDP presses forward its bill reinterpreting Article 9.
Last Friday, a special committee of Japan’s House of Representatives scheduled a Diet hearing for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)’s proposed security legislation for July 13. The Diet hearing is a prerequisite to putting the legislation to a vote. The LDP and their junior coalition partner, the Komeito Party, hope to pass the bills through the House of Representatives on July 16.
At the very latest, the LDP wants to be able to send the bills to the House of Councillors by July 24 in order to take advantage of the 60-day rule. According to the 60-day rule, once a bill is sent from the lower house to the upper house if 60 days pass and the upper hours does not hold a vote, it can be considered that the upper house rejected the bill. After those 60 days, the lower house can override the “veto” with a two-thirds majority. This is the most effective way to get around the possibility that the upper house could block the legislation simply by delaying a vote on it.
The LDP’s accelerated pace has forced other parties to respond with their own counterproposals in an attempt to slow the process down – ideally, for them, beyond the July 24 deadline.
Read the full story at The Diplomat