 Research commission's draft report is geared to gut Article 9 The House of Councilors Research Commission on the Constitution tabled its first draft of a report to its board members on April 13. Yoshikawa Haruko on behalf of the Japanese Communist Party criticized the draft as being geared to revise the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution. She demanded that the draft report be withdrawn because it overrides preceding discussions and agreements. The draft report states, "The commission's opinion is in favor of recognizing the right of collective self-defense and revising the Constitution to expressly include the Self-Defense Forces." This statement goes against the commission's agreement that the report should refrain from stating a conclusion or indicating majority or minority opinions. Objection to the report came even from the Democratic Party of Japan. The DPJ stated that no intra-party consensus has been made on revising the Constitution to explicitly write in the right of the SDF to exercise collective self-defense. A broad-ranging citizens' organization in opposition to constitutional revision on the same day carried out an emergency petition to the Diet, lest the final report preconcluded on revising Article 9 be submitted to the Diet. JCP House of Councilors member Nihi Sohei said to the petitioners, "There is no need for a report that is contrary to the commission's objective. Let's foil the submission of the report." (Akahata April 14, 2005) |