Japan - a State Strategy for the Twenty-First Century by Yasuhiro Nakasone

Author:Yasuhiro Nakasone [Nakasone, Yasuhiro]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138862838
Goodreads: 26536647
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

2 A popularly enacted People’s Constitution

Six years to constitutional revision

The cabinet created the first Commission on the Constitution. Consequently, that Commission reported to the cabinet and it was the responsibility of the prime minister and the party of government to decide how the cabinet would direct it. In contrast, the Diet created the present Constitutional Research Committees. Nevertheless, the present committees are constitutional debating forums; they do not have the authority to introduce debate about revision.

It is probably more appropriate to create committees in the Diet, as we have done, than to pursue constitutional revision under the framework of a coalition government. Popular consciousness is running ahead of Diet consciousness and free discussion is possible.

The goal of the present Research Committees is to carry out an open, public enquiry and debate into the good and bad points of the Constitution and the circumstances of its creation.

We have heard the opinions of the chairmen of the Research Committees in both Houses, Nakayama Taro in the House of Representatives and Murakami Masakuni in the House of Councillors, concerning the nature of the committees and they way they should operate. In my experience, the previous Commission went on for too long dragging out its work. This time it would be better to keep the term to a minimum, and to put the arguments before the nation. The debate on the constitution should conclude in three years. From year four, all the political parties should put forward their own draft revisions and these should form the basis for the battle of words within the Committee. In the interim, the draft revisions must be extensively publicised.

Ideas for revision must come from the Federation of Economic Organisations (Keidanren), the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Prefectural Governor’s and Mayoral Conferences, and academics. When the Meiji Constitution was being enacted, a draft was put forward in the Nishi-Tama region of Tokyo that was known as the Ttsukaichi Constitution’, and the Liberal Party, beginning with Itagaki Taisuke, entered the debate enthusiastically.

This time too it is important that we should have cumulative action in the form of a broad spectrum of popular drafts being put forward, possibly via the Internet and at public meetings, and by each political party taking its message to every part of the nation and perhaps holding oratorical meetings. Then, from year five, we are into the phase of concrete action and in year six, the revision is completed. I have suggested to Nakayama and Murakami that they should plan for completion of constitutional revision by 2006.

The long, six-year, time span will also give enough time so that the people do not experience a sense of urgency or compulsion. Then, when we actually begin to move, we should impose tighter limits on timing and put forward a revised draft for the Diet to debate. That, I believe, is what is likely to happen. When Hatoyama Yukio says, ‘Let us have each political party put forward a draft constitution within two years and let us determine to revise the constitution with dispatch’, he is truly Ichiro’s grandson.

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