Japan Press Weekly

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2014 February 26 - March 4 [POLITICS]

City assembly denounces Abe’s move to legalize right to collective self-defense

The Konan City Assembly in Shiga Prefecture on February 27 adopted a statement by majority vote in opposition to the government’s move to revise constitutional interpretation to enable Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense.

The Japanese Communist Party drew up the statement, and assembly members of the Liberal Democratic Party-associated group and Komei Party voted against the statement.

The statement criticizes the Prime Minister Abe for trying to validate the exercise of the right to collective self-defense by changing the conventional constitutional interpretation. It stresses that Abe’s measure “is very dangerous because it denies the Constitution as the supreme law and undermine the very essence of constitutionalism”.

The constitutional interpretation should not be revised as Japan’s exercise of the right to collective self-defense has nothing to do with its security and paves the way for Japan to engage in wars abroad, the statement points out.

On the same day, the city assembly also adopted another statement calling for the abolition of the State Secrets Protection Law.