The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has apparently violated the Constitution in terms of Article 51, which provides ‘members of both Houses shall not be held liable outside the House for speeches, debates or votes cast inside the House’. The Diet authority has requested Councilor Fukushima Mizuho to delete a word and rectify a phrase, ‘war bills’, which she used in her speech delivered in the Budget Committee meeting. According to the government the phrase is ‘inappropriate’.


CONSTITUTION UNDERMINED ? DIET MEMBER ACCUSED OF SPEECH


The following is the event that happened.


Councilor Fukushima asked a question to Premier Abe Shinzo in the Budget Committee meeting on April 1. In her speech she argued, referring to a series of bills concerning the right of collective self-defense which is under discussion by the ruling bloc, and said: ‘the Abe government is planned to present more than 14-18 war bills to the Diet’.


Premier Abe contested, saying ‘I cannot accept her way because discussions are deformed by wrong labeling’. Councilor Fukushima added; ‘I mean that the bills will allow war commitments’. Responding to their exchanges, Chairman of the Budget Committee, Kishi Koichi from LDP, told: ‘I think there were some inappropriate expressions in the speech. I will take right procedures after checking the shorthand notes in the council.’


Later a director of the Budget Committee, Horii Iwao from the LDP, requested Ms Fukushima to rectify ‘war bills’ to ‘war-related bills’ and delete the word ‘shamelessness’ used in order to criticize the government in her speech. She declined to accept on the spot.


A Show Played by Three Actors


Councilor Fukushima had used in her question speech the phrase ‘war bills’ in a meeting of the Budget Committee in February, but nobody of the LDP demanded anything.


Reportedly, Chairman of the Budget Committee has been embarrassed with the phrase, saying: ‘She employs it one-sidedly, which is labeling’.


The event has begun from a criticism by Councilor Fukushima, to a refutation by Premier Abe, to a comment by Chairman Kishi and up to a request by Committee Director Horii for rectification and deletion. That is, without doubt, an arranged performance. The Liberal Democratic Party enhances lately its efforts to intervene in broadcasting stations and newspapers.


In the pre-war era in 1940 the imperial parliament erased the stenographic records of a speech of Saito Takao from the Constitutional Democratic Party who had opposed the war against China in the plenary session of the House of Representatives, and then it deleted his name from the list of the House members. That means the Diet abandoned its supreme mission of expression for its oppression against Mr. Saito. The parliament had become pliable to the military. We must always keep the historic fact.


Councilor Fukushima told on April 24 in the mass rally held in front of the Diet building: ‘a request by the Diet for rectification and deletion of my words means a witch-hunt. If I accept it, nobody may be able to state war bills’. She expressed unyielding refusal in the rally urgently organized to oppose the war bills.


Change of Words to Hide Truths


The claim of ruling LDP to change and erase words of the councilor means that the government is well aware of a fact that a phrase ‘war bills’ represents truths. That is why it unilaterally defines as ‘inappropriate’ to conceal truths in order to pass the controversial bills in the Diet.


The Abe government has proposed a bill named ‘a bill to support international peace’, though it is a permanent law to send the Self Defense Forces abroad. It screens true meanings of the law, a law to commit in a war in foreign countries. It has shown another named a bill to assure safety to cope with serious circumstances, which in fact is one for a law to dispatch troops elsewhere in the world.


May 5, 2015