J Update

Governor of Okinawa Denny Tamaki made an unusual appearance to the court on Monday to submit his opinion on the building of new base for United States Force in Henoko, Nago city. “Execution by proxy of the national government, which violates the independency of Okinawa, cannot be accepted,” said Tamaki in the first oral argument at Naha Branch of Fukuoka High Court on the trial over the request of national government to change the design of new base. Accepting demand from Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, the court closed the trial on the day one.   The national government submitted in 2020 a change of plan for the construction of new base, which was to reinforce the soil of sea base. The government of Okinawa rejected the plan and Tokyo ordered Okinawa accepting it, but Okinawa did not obey, and then Tokyo filed a lawsuit. The Supreme Court decided in September that the order of national government was lawful. Seeing that Okinawa did not approve the plan by ...

The leading Liberal Democratic Party restarts the discussion for stable imperial succession. In the policy speech at the beginning of current extraordinary session of the Diet, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed his hope to accelerate the discussion, which has been slowed down. Considering the fundamental difference between the conservative lawmakers and the others over how to deal with the issue of female imperial family, it is not easy for them to have a conclusion soon. In his  policy speech  on September 23 rd , Kishida expected active discussion on imperial succession in the Diet. “Various issues related to ensuring stable imperial succession are important issues connected to the fundamentals of the country, with a particular concern on the issue of how to address the declining number of Imperial Family members,” said Kishida. He demanded that a consensus of the legislature would be compiled as soon as possible.   Article 1 of  Imperial Household Law  s...

The Japan Fair Trade Commission   announced   that it had opened an investigation on Google for suspected violation of the Antimonopoly Act. The commission doubts that Google might have excluded its competitors through the agreements with mobile device manufacturers to make them pre-install Google’s applications. Following Europe and United States that already embarked on regulating the occupation of market on web search, JFTC made its stance clear to stand against the internet giants. The suspect against Google is “entering into license agreements with Android mobile device manufacturers under which Google makes them install its applications, such as a search application named ‘Google Search’ and a web browser application named ‘Google Chrome’, together with its application store named ‘Google Play’, and designates where to place icons, etc. of such applications on screens of the devices.”   JFTC is also investigating whether Google entered into agreements with original ...

International Monetary Fund released   a forecast   that Japan would be overtaken by Germany this year as the world’s third largest economy. According to the forecast, Japan’s nominal GDP will decrease 0.2% from the previous year to $4.23 trillion, while Germany’s will increase 8.4% to $4.43 trillion. There is the current trend of weak yen in the background, but the slipping down from the world top three economies shocked the Japanese citizens who had been proud of being one of the economic giants. Regretful enough, there is no sign of re-boost for Japan. Nominal GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in a given time period, being evaluated at current market prices. Although it is impacted by inflation, nominal GDP indicates how well the economy is doing. Japan’s decline is apparently affected by current depreciation of Japanese yen against US dollar or European euro. High inflation rate in Germany has also influenced to the replacement in the ranking. But i...

Japan and China cerebrated the forty-fifth anniversary of Japan-China Peace and Friendship Treaty on Monday October 23 rd . Forty-five years ago, Vice-Premier of People’s Republic of China Deng Xiaoping visited Tokyo and exchanged the documents of ratification with Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda Takeo. The bilateral relationship between the two nations has largely been changed. As China took over Japan as an economic giant, frictions between them became frequent not only in economy but in diplomacy and security issues. They need to “develop relations of perpetual peace and friendship” as the treaty upholds. To the reception held by business sectors, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio sent  a message  urging both governments to make further effort to build “constructive and stable Japan-China relationship.” Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang evaluated the treaty as an important corner stone that directed Sino-Japan relationship to peaceful co-existence or friendship beyond generations, ...

This is the twelfth example for the Supreme Court to decide an existing law to be unconstitutional. The Grand Bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday decided that the provision of an act, which required permanent loss of reproductivity to a person hoping to change sex, to be unconstitutional. The Diet, having neglected in taking necessary actions for a long time, has to start its effort to implement the demand of the court. The  Act on Special Cases in Handling Gender Status for Persons with Gender Identity Disorder   upholds five requirements for a person who wants to change sex: 1) not less than 18 years of age, 2) not currently married, 3) currently has no child who is a minor, 4) has no reproductive glands or whose glands have permanently lost function, and 5) has a body which appears to have parts that resembles the genital organs of those of the opposite gender.   A person filed a petition in 2019 seeking the change of the legally registered sex. Hamamatsu Branch of...

Receiving the policy speech by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the both Houses of the Diet entered in the phase of questioning by the party leaders in plenary sessions on Tuesday. While the opposition leaders raised skepticisms against the income tax reduction, Kishida did not tell the details of his idea. News reports revealed that the government and the leading parties would make a deal on the tax cut and allowance. Kishida seems to be prioritizing the discussion of his party to the Diet session. The president of Constitutional Democratic Party Kenta Izumi argued that tax cut, which needs legislative process in next spring, would be too slow to help the families. Paralleling his words with Kishida’s yelling of “It’s economy, economy and economy,” Izumi said “It’s benefit, benefit, and benefit,” and required the government to distribute ¥30,000 to the six out of ten families, which were categorized in the middle class or lower income. Kishida answered that he would consider, including t...

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a   policy speech   to the Diet on Monday. Suffering from decline of approval rate for him and unpreferable result of by-elections the day before, Kishida focused on improving economic situation of Japan, saying “It’s economy, economy and economy.” However, it is not clear whether his idea on why economy is so crucial now has been understood by the nationals. Here’s a question: Isn’t economy important for himself to maintain his administration?   According to his policy speech, it is now or never for Japan to achieve the goal of economic reform for the first time in these thirty years. Calling the trend of past thirty years “cost-cut economy,” Kishida insisted that Japan now has the chance to enter onto a new stage of economy, raising wage increase, capital investment of companies, vigorous stock market and positive demand-supply gap. To the reform for sustainable wage hike and growing economy with active investment, he would be dealing w...

In the two by-elections voted on October 22 nd , Liberal Democratic Party won one and lost another. That does not mean a draw, because both seats were occupied by LDP before the elections. LDP decreased one seat. The results revealed an unstable political basis of Fumio Kishida administration, which is facing the public frustration with inflation or indecisive handlings of the policies. Not only the possibility of a snap election within this year is declining, but skepticism on the leadership of Kishida may grow inside LDP. The election in Tokushima-Kochi district of House of Councillors, LDP had a disadvantage from the start of the campaign, because the criticism against the former lawmaker’s violence had been prevalent among the voters. Having experienced a bitter defeat in the previous election in 2022, the opposition parties established a structure of supporting one candidate. The leaders of the opposition parties regarded the result as an achievement of cooperation, however, it is...

The government of Japan once had three public corporations: railway, cigarette and telephone. They were privatized in 1980s, receiving the demand to cut the cost for them. When telephone corporation was privatized in 1985, establishing Nippon Telegram and Telephone Corporation (NTT), the government legislated NTT Law to vest the obligations to maintain universal telephone service everywhere in Japan and to disclose the achievement of the studies on telecommunication. The president of NTT, Akira Shimada, required Liberal Democratic Party to abolish NTT Law, hoping to be unleashed. There is a discussion in LDP to promote NTT reform for defense policy. NTT Law was legislated at the time most telephone services were provided through the lines in office, home or pay phone booth. Now, most telephone users call through cell phone. According to the report of  Nikkei Shimbun,  contracts of using fixed-line phone decreased from 63 million in 1997 to 13 million in 2023. Cell phone contra...

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday directed the leading coalition parties, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, to consider introducing income tax reduction as a measure to deal with current inflation. Easier said than done. Kishida did not instructed how to do that exactly. Raised were a lot of reasons about the difficulty from his colleagues in LDP. His political intention of taking advantage of tax cut for his administration is too obvious for the people to believe in his handling of economy. It is unclear that the decision will bring preferable outcome.   In the press conference on new economic stimulus plan on September 25 th , Kishida told that he would return the achievement of economic growth to the people. It was recognized as his announcement of introducing new tax reduction.   When he decided to increase the defense budget last December, Kishida thought that tax increase would be inevitable to squeeze the budgetary resource out. LDP tax policy research board in...

The basic stance of Japan on the attacks between Islamic militant movement Hamas and Israel has been calming down the situation through reaching both Israel and Palestine. As seeing what Kishida administration did in diplomacy so far, it is hard to say that Japan has been playing an effective role in persuading the both sides to stop attacking each other. Kidnaping Israeli citizens or the blast on a hospital in Gaza City, on which Palestine accused Israel and Israel attributed it to Palestine militants, generates the hatred against each other. Japan has at least been successful in evacuation of Japanese citizens from the region.   Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had  telephone talks  with the leaders of four Arab countries, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates and Qatar, in the night on October 18 th . Kishida stated to those leaders his strong indignation on the damage to innocent civilians caused by the attack against Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, and Japan’s emerge...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided that the largest disparity in the value of one vote in the election of House of Councillors in 2022, which was actually 3.03-to-1, fell within the requirement of Constitution of Japan. Although the situation of the value-gap was not fully accepted by the voters, the court found that the disparity had not grown so much. The decision requires the House further efforts for adjustment anyway.   According to a non-profit organization,  National Conference for Realization of One Vote for One Person , one councillor in Fukui District (one seat) had 317,564 eligible voters in the election 2022, while another one in Kanagawa (four seats) had 962,098. Thus, the value of one vote in Fukui is 3.03 times greater than in Kanagawa.   The plaintiffs, two groups of lawyers demanding invalidation of the election, argued that the election violated Article 1 of the Constitution of Japan which determines that the sovereignty resides with the people. They...

Article 66 of Constitution of Japan determines that Prime Minister and other Ministers of State must be civilians. Along with the principle of civilian control, Self-defense Force Act requires the members of the organization to be politically neutral. That is why the politicians also have to refrain from taking advantage of Self-defense Force politically. Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara made a speech on Sunday that the voting for Liberal Democratic Party would reward the members of SDF and their families. He took his words back immediately after criticisms were raised. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has shown no sign of replacing Kihara.   In the by-election campaign for an LDP candidate in Nagasaki 4 th  district of House of Representatives, Kihara made that speech to the public in Sasebo city, where a major base of Marine Self-defense Force and United States Force are located. “Sasebo is the city where the members of Self-defense Force and their families live with pride,” Ki...

The Speakers of both Houses of the Diet are called the heads of three state powers, and the highest morality is required to them. One of the two, Speaker of House of Representatives Hiroyuki Hosoda held a press conference on Friday to announce his resignation. However, he did not honestly answer the questions about the relationship with a religious corporation to which the government requested dissolution order, and sexual harassment against female journalists. His conversations in the conference are regarded as harming the dignity of his position.   In October 2019, Hosoda made a speech in an international conference of Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, formally known as Unification Church, in which he congratulated the conference and told that he would report about it to then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The speech indicated his close relationship with FFWPU. Hosoda later admitted that he attended the meetings of FFWPU for eight times.   In the press conferenc...

For a man who changed gender to live as a man, is surgery needed? The court answered the question “no.” Hamamatsu Branch of Shizuoka Family Court decided on Wednesday that a provision of   Act on Special Cases in Handling Gender Status for Persons with Gender Identity Disorder   violated Constitution of Japan which guarantees pursuit of happiness for the people. It indicates that Japanese society can be regarded as having progressed to the extent it is not disturbed by freedom of gender identity. Article 3 of the act lists up conditions for a person to be recognized as having changed gender, one of which is having no “reproductive glands or whose reproductive glands have permanently lost function.” For a person to make “reproductive glands” lose function, no measure except having gender reassignment surgery can be imagined. A person, who is a woman in terms of family registry and recognize himself as a man and suffered from gender identity disorder, filed a lawsuit to the cour...

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology submitted to Tokyo Regional Court on Friday a request of issuing an order to dissolve a religious corporation, Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. The ministry recognized damages on its believers and their families caused by donation to the organization. After the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year, FFWPU has been targeted as having inappropriate relationship with ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Even though Kishida administration hopes to bring this issue to an end, the process of the dissolution takes certain period of time. Article 81 of  Religious Corporations Act  determines that the court may order the dissolution of religious corporation with following conditions: “in violation of laws and regulations, the religious corporation commits an act which is clearly found to harm public welfare substantially,” or “the religious corporations commits an act which deviates subst...