Experts blast constitutional reinterpretation in Lower House session

It was an unexpected and embarrassing blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. During a hearing of a Lower House session on constitutional affairs Thursday, all three noted constitutional scholars summoned as witnesses — including one recommended by Abe’s own ruling camp — bashed the reinterpretation of war-renouncing Article 9.

The three experts were Waseda University professor Yasuo Hasebe, who was summoned based on a recommendation by the ruling bloc of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito; Setsu Kobayashi, professor emeritus at Keio University recommended by the Democratic Party of Japan; and Eiji Sasada, another Waseda University professor recommended by Ishin no To (Japan Innovation Party).

A party usually picks up an academic expert who supports its own arguments for a Diet hearing. But betraying expectations of the LDP-Komeito bloc, Hasebe said the Abe administration’s push to reinterpret the Constitution last year to allow Japan to use the right of collective self-defense violates effectively violates Article 9.

“Allowing the use of the right of collective self-defense cannot be explained within the framework of the basic logic of the past government views” of the Constitution, Hasebe told lawmakers at the Committee on the Constitution.

“(The reinterpretation) considerably damages legal stability and violates the Constitution,” Hasebe said, echoing the opinions of the other two experts at the hearing.

According to Kyodo News, Hasebe’s unexpected remark embarrassed lawmakers in the ruling bloc, who are pushing to enact government-sponsored security bills during the current Diet session, including some to expand Japan’s military roles based on the controversial reinterpretation.

“Why are they (LDP committee members) doing this during a sensitive time for deliberations on (the security) bills? This is an anti-party action, and the LDP (committee) members should all be replaced,” an unnamed LDP executive was quoted as saying by Kyodo News.

The right of collective self-defense, as defined under the United Nations charter, allows a country to use force to come to the aid of an ally under attack, even if the country itself is not being attacked.

The pacifist Constitution had been interpreted to limit Japan’s use of force strictly to its own self-defense, including a ban exercising collective self-defense.

But last year, Abe said he wanted to change the long-standing interpretation, arguing the Constitution allows Japan to defend its allies, particularly the U.S., if Japan’s survival is at stake and use of force is limited to the minimum necessary level.

Later in the day, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga defended the government position, saying the opinions of the three scholars won’t affect Diet deliberations because “there are other noted constitutional scholars” as well who argue Abe’s reinterpretation is in fact constitutional.

“The Constitution has not banned measures for self-defense,” Suga said.

“So the minimum necessary use of force should be allowed” and the reinterpretation is within the frame work of the past government views, Suga argued.

Article 9 of the Constitution reads : “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

“In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

Japanese politicians in power have long argued that Article 9, despite its renunciation of war and prohibition on maintaining military forces, doesn’t deny the inherent right for a country to defend itself as long as it is limited to self-defense exclusively.