By Yuki Tatsumi
By focusing solely on constitutionality, Japan missed the opportunity for a frank debate on its actual security policy.
On July 16, Japan’s House of Representatives (Lower House) passed a legislative package that is critical for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s national security agenda. The bill now goes to its House of Councillors (Upper House) for consideration and vote.
The deliberation process turned out to be far rockier than Abe anticipated. In particular, the discourse on the security legislation turned increasingly confrontational after June 4, when three respected constitutional scholars who testified at the special committee on constitution all stated that they believed that the proposed legislation package was unconstitutional.
In fact, the nature of the discourse in the Diet that unfolded after June 4 was almost a flashback of the two previous Diet debates, one during and after the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the other in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In both cases, the debate almost solely focused on the legal aspect — constitutionality, in particular — of the legislation proposed by the government to authorize a certain action by the Japanese government. In both cases, there was little, if any, debate about whether the response proposed by the government was in Japan’s national security interest, or whether the proposed legislation provided the Japanese government with sufficient tools to address the security challenges under discussion.
Read the full story at The Diplomat