LDP Seeks 1-Year Lawmaker Term Extension in Emergency Clause

Tokyo, April 23 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Thursday called for allowing the terms of lawmakers to be extended for about a year under a proposed emergency clause as part of efforts to revise the Constitution. In intensive deliberations on the clause at the Commission on the Constitution in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament, former internal affairs minister Yoshitaka Shindo of the LDP said the panel should discuss the scope and duration of damage from large-scale disasters or terrorist attacks in recognizing situations in which it would be deemed difficult to hold elections. If lawmakers’ terms are to be extended, they need to be lengthened by about a year given a possible megaquake in the Nankai Trough in the Pacific Ocean off central to southwestern Japan, Shindo said, also hinting at a potential re-extension. Shindo proposed that a concrete idea for the clause be presented at the commission’s next meeting. Kaoru Nishida of the Japan Innovation Party, the LDP’s coalition partner, stressed the need to present a schedule for constitutional revision related to the emergency clause. He also called for setting up a panel to draft new constitutional clauses. Democratic Party for the People leader Yuichiro Tamaki also sought efforts to consider draft clauses. Meanwhile, Toru Kunishige of the main opposition Centrist Reform Alliance did not clarify his party’s position on the functions of parliament during emergencies, explaining that the CRA is holding debates on the matter. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]