Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2012 October 31 - November 6 [POLITICS]

Upper House holds urgent session on PM censure motion

The House of Councilors, where a policy speech by the prime minister was not delivered for the first time in history, on November 2 emergently held a plenary session to question Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko about a censure motion against him adopted late August.

This is the first meeting of this kind held in 27 years based on the Diet Act.

Japanese Communist Party member of the Upper House Inoue Satoshi stated, “The prime minister disregards the principles of parliamentary democracy by ignoring the censure motion against him as if nothing happened,” and proposed that the prime minister seek an electoral verdict.

When the Democratic Party of Japan was still an opposition party, Koshiishi Azuma, the head of the DPJ caucus at that time, was speaking about the importance of a prime minister censure motion, demanding that the then prime minister call a snap election.

Pointing out that the importance of a censure motion did not diminish after the DPJ became a ruling party, Inoue pressed the DPJ to stand by its words.

Inoue condemned the DPJ, Liberal Democratic, and Komei parties for having prearranged to steamroller through a consumption tax increase and create a mechanism for making it possible to divert post-disaster recovery funds to other projects. He also criticized Prime Minister Noda for still promoting the resumption of off-line nuclear power plant operations and having deployed MV-22 Ospreys to Okinawa while neglecting people’s safety concerns.

Noda said, “It is the basis of consumption and economic activities” as regards to the higher consumption tax. About nuclear power generation, he said, “It will be utilized as the main source of energy.” As regards to the Osprey deployment, he said, “The U.S. is paying the maximum possible attention to the safety issues in compliance with the (Japan-U.S.) agreement.”

* * *

Nine opposition parties, including the JCP, were proposing that President of the House of Councilors Hirata Kenji seek a response from Prime Minister Noda to the censure motion against him adopted in the last ordinary session of the Diet.

Their proposal made on October 30 stated, “A censure motion in the House of Councilors, one of the two Houses of the highest organ of state power, is the most serious in House resolutions and represents the very authority of the House.”