DPJ's high-handed steering tactics destroys the Diet

Japan Press Weekly

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DPJ's high-handed steering tactics destroys the Diet

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

The ruling block's high-handed way of Diet steering has been highlighted in repeating forcible passage of bills as the current ordinary Diet session is approaching its end.

The ruling Democratic and People's New parties on May 31 railroaded a bill to "reform" postal services through the House of Representatives with only six-hours for discussions and sent it to the House of Councilors in complete disregard of calls for further discussion by opposition parties. This showed that the ruling block is unwilling to allot enough time to Diet deliberations. In addition to the postal "reform" bill, the ruling parties also intend to forcibly enact a series of bills, including the bill to revise the Worker Dispatch Law and the "regional sovereignty" bills, during the current Diet session. Such a high-handed way of Diet steering will be suicidal for parliamentary politics.

Refusal of discussion

Both the postal bill and the bill to revise the Worker Dispatch Law are important and should be discussed thoroughly.

The postal bill is designed to change the present postal privatization policy as promoted by the former Koizumi government which lowered the quality of postal services and undermined the principle of providing universal service to the public.

However, under the bill, the policy to divide postal, banking, and insurance services into three private corporations will remain unchanged. The bill calls for universal service everywhere in Japan, but fails to offer any guarantee.

The reason why the ruling parties are rushing to enact the postal bill is because the DPJ wants to acquire support from small post office managers in the upcoming House of Councilors election. If the ruling parties intent is to make Diet deliberation meaningless for that purpose, such an attitude is impermissible.

What we cannot overlook is that while the ruling block hurries to pass the bills through the Diet, they continuously refuse to hold discussions on the issue of the U.S. Futenma base in Okinawa and other issues concerning people's livelihoods, and refuse to summon Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio and DPJ Secretary General Ozawa Ichiro as unsworn witnesses to testify in regard to their money scandals. It is unacceptable that the ruling parties refuse to have thoroughgoing discussions on issues that are required to be discussed and forcibly enact bills that are not required to be passed immediately.

- Akahata, June 1, 2010