Japan takes first step toward amending its "peace constitution"

A bill to amend Japan's national referendum law with the aim of revising its constitution is likely to pass the Diet

The National Diet of Japan

A bill to amend a national referendum law that sets the procedures for amending the Japanese constitution has passed the Commission on the Constitution at the House of Representatives, the lower house of Japan’s Diet. That represents the first step toward revising Japan’s constitution, an effort that began during the tenure of previous Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The Commission on the Constitution said Thursday that it had passed a revision to the national referendum law to make it easier to vote on constitutional amendments by enabling polling places to be set up inside subway stations and shopping malls. The revision still needs to pass the floor of the House of Representatives on Tuesday and then the House of Councilors, the upper house of the Diet. But passage is likely since the revision has the backing of both the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), the biggest opposition party.

The reason the CDP finally agreed to the revised bill three years after the LDP first tabled it in 2018 was that the LDP accepted its demands.

On Thursday, LDP Secretary-General Toshihiro Nikai and CDP Secretary-General Tetsuro Fukuyama agreed to tack on a provision to the bill’s annex about passing a law to regulate advertising about national referenda within three years of the current bill’s enactment. Opposition parties have agreed that such regulations are necessary since allowing unlimited media or online advertising about a national referendum for amending the Constitution would give an advantage to the better-funded campaign.

Public opinion seems to have nudged the opposition party toward reaching an agreement. Several polls carried out by newspapers on Monday, the 74th anniversary of the enactment of Japan’s Constitution, found that more than 50 percent of respondents are in favor of amending the Constitution. That support has been rising every year.

Japan has never amended its current Constitution, which came into force in 1947, after Japan’s defeat in World War II.

If the Diet passes the revision to the national referendum law, it would likely trigger a debate about amending the Constitution. One of the potential changes that politicians are discussing would be adding a clause about emergency measures to Article 9, a key section in Japan’s “peace constitution” that rejects the right to initiate hostilities and forbids the possession of an army.

Revising Article 9 is a major goal of the LDP and other conservative forces, who want explicit constitutional sanction for Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, which effectively function as an army. That worries not only Japan’s opposition parties but also Japan’s neighbors, including South Korea.

But since the public is still opposed to amending Article 9, that campaign faces an uphill climb. According to a Monday poll commissioned by the Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, 61 percent of Japanese said it would be better not to amend Article 9, more than twice the number who want to amend it.

By Kim So-youn, staff reporter

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