Japan Upper House Panel Adopts Secrecy Bill amid Uproar

Tokyo, Dec. 5 (Jiji Press)--Japan's ruling bloc on Thursday bulldozed a controversial state secret bill through a committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament, amid an uproar. Faced with fierce protests from the opposition side, the ruling camp gave up passing the bill to enhance the protection of state secrets into law within Thursday. The ruling bloc now aims to get the bill through the full Upper House for its enactment Friday, the final day of the current parliamentary session. As confusion in parliamentary procedures is seen continuing into Friday, the ruling bloc is considering extending the session for a few days to ensure the secrecy and other important bills are enacted, coalition lawmakers said. On Thursday, deliberations on the secrecy bill at the Upper House Special Committee on National Security were thrown into confusion repeatedly. About three hours after the start of the talks early in the afternoon, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party suddenly submitted a motion to terminate the debates and put the bill to a vote. Opposition lawmakers rushed to the chairman of the committee to protest. Amid the uproar, ruling lawmakers stood up to show their approval of the bill, marking the bill's passage through the committee. Five opposition parties, including the Democratic Party of Japan and Your Party, requested Upper House President Masaaki Yamazaki to invalidate the committee's passage of the bill. The DPJ, the largest opposition party, has grown critical of the ruling camp's management of parliamentary affairs as a whole. In protest of the recent forcible passage of a social security reform bill through an Upper House committee, the party submitted a motion seeking the dismissal of Midori Ishii, chairwoman of the Upper House welfare committee, and a censure motion against welfare minister Norihisa Tamura. In addition, the DPJ presented a censure motion against Masaharu Nakagawa, chairman of the committee that handled the secrecy bill. The full Upper House rejected the motion against Ishii. The state secrecy bill has drawn fire not only from opposition lawmakers but also from citizens and intellectuals. Critics say the public's right to know could be significantly damaged if the bill becomes law. A key focus in parliamentary deliberations on the bill has been whether to set up a third-party committee that will check whether the government designates state secrets appropriately. The government on Thursday proposed setting up an office for such a purpose under the Cabinet Office, adding to three organizations Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has proposed creating. One of the three is an advisory entity made up of intellectuals that will set rules on how the government should designate state secrets and declassify them after certain periods. Another is a monitoring committee under the Cabinet Secretarial that will bring together vice minister-class officials from the foreign, defense and other ministries, while the remaining one is a government document management body comprised of senior officials that will also come under the wing of the Cabinet Office. Details of the fourth organization are unclear, including its relations with the three bodies proposed by Abe. END