Imperial Family Bill May Clear Lower House as Early as Fri.

Tokyo, July 8 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s House of Representatives is expected to approve a bill to revise the Imperial House Law as early as Friday after opposition parties on Wednesday agreed to return to parliamentary debates in the Lower House following concessions by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to their demands. During the day’s talks with the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance, the LDP said that it would agree to hold intensive discussions at the Budget Committee of the lower chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in attendance. The LDP also conveyed the ruling bloc’s decision to give up a plan to enact a bill to cut the number of Lower House seats during the current Diet session. This paved the way for the normalization of Diet proceedings in the all-important lower chamber. The opposition parties returned to debates at the House of Councillors, the upper chamber, on Tuesday. In the Lower House, the ruling camp has suspended deliberations on the bill to reduce the number of the chamber’s seats and another bill to establish a second Japanese capital, in order to prioritize the bill to revise the Imperial House Law aimed at securing a sufficient number of Imperial Family members. Especially criticizing the bill to reduce the number of proportional representation seats by 45, the opposition parties had refused to take part in Lower House deliberations. Following Wednesday’s LDP-CRA talks, a board meeting of the Lower House Committee on Rules and Administration decided that an explanatory session on the Imperial Family bill would be held on Friday. The ruling parties hope to secure the committee’s approval and put the bill to a vote at a Lower House plenary session later that day. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]