J Update

The Shigeru Ishiba Cabinet and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) proposed convocation of a special session of the Diet on November 10 th , in which the coalition of the LDP and Komeito will not have a simple majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since 2012. The opposition parties accepted the proposal without any approval on the date of the election for nominating the prime minister or how long the session should be. The LDP faces an inconvenient reality that it has lost its strong grip in the Diet.   According to the Constitution of Japan, a special session of the Diet, different from ordinary session or extraordinary session, needs to be held within thirty days after a general election of the House of Representatives. Main issue of a special session would ordinarily be having an election to nominate the prime minister, because any cabinet has to be dissolved at the beginning of a special session.   Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, proposed the convoc

Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba,   revealed   his hope to have a summit meeting with President of China, Xi Jinping, taking opportunity of the leaders meeting of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Peru later this month. It will be the first opportunity for Ishiba to participate in a major diplomatic event after he sworn in as the prime minister in October. In the meeting with Xi, Ishiba hopes to find a solution on bilateral issues such as China’s import ban on foods from Japan. Ishiba revealed that the government of Japan was coordinating a summit meeting with Xi or the President of the United States, Joe Biden, in the backdrop of APEC Summit, if he would be reelected as the prime minister in the Diet session scheduled to be convoked on November 11 th .   Although the leading coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito does not have simple majority in the House of Representatives, it is likely that Ishiba will win the election for nominating the prime minister at leas

Tokyo High Court   found   that current provision of the Civil Code, which denies same-sex marriage, would violate the Constitution of Japan on October 30 th . The court recognized the provision as discriminative treatment of sexual preference, which would breach Article 14 of the constitution for equality under the law and Paragraph 2 of Article 24 for legislation on marriage and family based on dignity of individuals. It marked the second decision for high courts in Japan to issue a sentence which determines the provision for marriage in the Civil Code as unconstitutional.   Seven people filed a lawsuit, demanding compensation of 7 million yen to the government of Japan for not treating same-sex marriage as legal marriage. Tokyo District Court decided dismissed the lawsuit in 2022, arguing that legislation for marriage is a matter of discretion of the Diet, while it recognized the current situation is against Paragraph 2 of Article 24. The plaintiffs appealed to the high court.   The

A panel of the United Nations on the right of women recommended the government of Japan to revise Imperial House Law to comply with a treaty for gender equality. The panel also questioned Japan’s situation that women effectively have to change their surname to husband’s, as well as legal requirement of spousal consent to abortion. The government of Japan firmly opposed to the conclusion of the committee, arguing legal sovereignty on succession to the throne.   The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), one of the human rights treaty bodies of the United Nations, released “ concluding observations on the ninth periodic report on Japan ” on October 30 th . This is the sixth recommendation to Japan, following the previous one in 2016.   The committee considers that Japan’s Imperial House Law is incompatible with the requirement of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1979. “Allowing only male offspring in the male

The top leader of Komeito, the coalition partner of leading Liberal Democratic Party, is going to be replaced, given a serious defeat in the general election of the House of Representatives on October 27 th . Chief Representative, Keiichi Ishii,   announced   on October 31 st   that he would resign, taking responsibility of reducing seats in the election. The leader of Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin-no Kai), Nobuyuki Baba, indicated that he might not run in next presidential election of the party, receiving criticisms from party members on poor outcome of the election. The parties that reduced their seats in the general election, except the LDP and Japan Communist Party, are in trouble in post-election politics.   Komeito reduced its seats from 32 before the election to 24. The party won only 4 in single-seat constituencies out of 11 districts where the party fielded candidates. Ishii was defeated by a candidate of Democratic Party for the People in Saitama 14 th  district, resul

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) agreed on mutually promoting discussion over policies to implement budget and other bills in the Diet. Losing majority in the House of Representatives as the result of general election held on October 27 th , the LDP decided to maintain its administration with “partial” cooperation between current leading coalition with Komeito and the DPP.   Suffering from bitter defeat in the general election, the LDP significantly reduced its seats in the House. The leading coalition, fallen short of simple majority wanting 18 more seats, found the DPP with 28 seats to be a partner for securing majority not only to pass every bill including annual budget, but also to win the election for nominating the prime minister.   DPP has announced that they would vote for its leader, Yuichiro Tamaki, in the election, rather than joining framework of opposition parties to elect the leader of Constitutional Democratica Party, Yoshi