Japan Press Weekly

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2011 September 14 - 20 [JCP]

Shii calls on JCP lawmakers to enter into extraordinary Diet deliberations addressing people’s needs

The Japanese Communist Party on September 13 held its Dietmembers’ assembly at the Diet building and Chair Shii Kazuo called on attendees to make concrete proposals to deal with issues of such as the 3.11 disaster reconstruction, the nuclear crisis, tax and social welfare, and U.S. military facilities based on people’s demands during the extraordinary Diet session.

About the Diet session lasting only for four days with no Budget Committee meetings, Shii said, “The new Cabinet should show us its basic stance of how it intends to handle state affairs and should hold Budget Committee meetings in addition to party representatives’ interpellation at plenary sessions in both chambers.”

Shii criticized the new Cabinet led by Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko for avoiding debating over what to do to tackle the pending issues.

Prime Minister Noda visited the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) before announcing his Cabinet lineup to curry Keidanren’s favor, which even the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party had never done. He also requested the business community to play a leading role in Japan’s economic and financial affairs. DPJ Policy Chief Maehara Seiji visited the United States before the Diet session starts to vow to ease the limits on the use of arms by Japan’s troops in U.N. peacekeeping operations abroad as well as to review Japan’s policy regarding arms embargo.

Shii pointed out that this indicates the policy direction the new Cabinet is going to take, and called on the JCP Dietmembers to “argue for drastic measures to cope with the pending issues based on what the public earnestly expect from Japanese politics.”

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All JCP parliamentarians were absent from the opening ceremony of the extraordinary Diet session convened on September 13 due to the attendance of the Emperor.

The ceremony takes place in accordance with the practice of the pre-war Imperial Diet under the Constitution of the Emperor of Japan. The JCP has argued for a ceremony appropriate to the present Constitution representing popular sovereignty.