Roundup: Experts in Japan divided over PM's security bills amid public protests

A group of experts who convened in parliament for a public hearing Monday to present arguments for and against the contentious security legislation being pitched by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to boost the scope of Japan's Self- Defense Forces (SDF) remained at odds ahead of a parliamentary committee vote slated for Wednesday.

Out of five experts who presented their cases in the Lower House special committee, two who were hand-picked by Abe's ruling coalition were in favor of the security bills, the passage of which to the upper house for enactment into law has been delayed owing to opposition party resistance and public disapproval, despite the ruling coalitions majority in both chambers, while two voiced arguments against the security package.

The experts who voiced their arguments condemning Abe's war bills, that, if enacted, would mark the biggest post-war shift in security policy in Japan's pacifist post-war era and potentially dramatically shift the security dynamic and stability in the region, were selected by opposition parties and told the committee that Abe's war bills were in violation of the constitution and hence Japan's Supreme Law.

A plethora of renowned constitutional scholars, legal experts, as well as law associations have, of late, come forward and declared that the ruling party's proposed security bills are unconstitutional and, as such, should be considerably revised, with a number of experts on the matter calling for the package to be scrapped entirely.

At the heart of the debate is whether it would be permissible for the ruling coalition to circumnavigate Japan's pacifist constitution by reinterpreting Article 9, which, amongst other criteria, outlaws war and the use of force as a means to settle international disputes.

The proposed new legislation would theoretically allow Japan the right to exercise collective self-defense, or coming to the aid of an ally, like the United States, who was under armed attack, even if Japan itself was not under attack, and would generally permit Japan's forces to engage in borderless missions overseas, including in conflict zones and active military theaters.

Japan's top government spokesperson Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday that he hoped the lower house deliberations on the security package would go to a vote on Wednesday, intimating that the issue had been debated between parties and experts for long enough.

However, on July 8, the opposition Japan Innovation Party and the Democratic Party of Japan both submitted bills to parliament to counter Abe and the LDP-led coalition's contentious security legislation, with the Japan Innovation Party seeking to expand the scope of the SDF's existing right to exercise only "individual self-defense", and only coming to the aid of an ally if not doing so would lead to an attack on Japan.

The two parties both presented alternatives for the government' s current plans for the SDF responses to so-called "gray zone" situations, which see sovereignty impinged but not to the point of armed attacks against Japan or its allies.

And while on Monday one of the ruling party's experts, diplomatic affairs commentator Yukio Okamoto, argued that it was time to reexamine the appropriateness of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau's position that all action other than defending Japanese territory was unconstitutional, Ryuichi Ozawa, a professor from Jikei University, opined to the contrary that the new legislation was ambiguous in its parameters for the SDF, and violated the constitution as the right to exercise collective self-defense could become illimitable.

Ozawa concluded that Abe's war bills should be scrapped, echoing the voices of hundred of protesters outside the Diet building on Monday voicing also their opposition to the war bills.

The protesters were united in their belief that the proposed bills could see Japan drawn into war and put the lives of citizens here who, since the end of World War II, have been committed to pacifism in jeopardy.

The ruling bloc is coming under increasing fire for trying to ram its security legislation through parliament, with the opposition camp, the public and scholars who have found the bills to be unconstitutional, all calling for the dire need for more parliamentary debate, before any decisions are made or votes cast on what could reverse decades of post-war pacifism in Japan.

However, despite the current delay, Abe's ruling camp is eyeing passing the war bills though the upper house of parliament and enacting them into law by the end of the now extended Diet session on Sept. 27, a scenario that will ensure a monumental backlash from the public here, Japan's neighboring countries who suffered under its brutal militaristic regime during WWII, as well as the international community, which is calling for Japan to adhere to its constitution and war-renouncing ways. Endi