Japan Press Weekly

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2013 December 4 - 10 [WELFARE]

Adversely-revised public assistance law enacted

A bill to adversely revise the Public Assistance Act became law in the House of Representatives plenary session on December 6 by the majority vote of the Liberal Democratic, Komei, Democratic, Japan Restoration, Your, and People’s Life parties.

The Japanese Communist Party voted against the bill on the grounds that the bill would legitimize the turning away of people in need of welfare benefits. The Social Democratic Party also opposed the bill.

The revised law obliges welfare applicants to submit unnecessarily-detailed application documents and forces their relatives to financially support them if possible.

The six parties also used their majority to enact a new law urging needy people to get an intermediate job or some type of temporary job although wages may be lower than minimum wage standards, supposedly under the guise of self-support assistance.

Agata Yoshihiro, the chair of the All Japan Federation of Organizations for the Protection of Life and Health, immediately issued a statement in protest pointing out that it is outrageous for the National Diet to revise the law in regard to the minimum standards of people’s living with only ten hours of discussions in both chambers of the Diet.

The statement goes on to state that amid a growing number of people dying of hunger or dying in solitude today, lawmakers in favor of the two laws are basically saying that people’s lives can be determined by those in power which would lead to the erosion of democracy and people’s right to live guaranteed under Article 25 of the Constitution.