Diet session in home stretch
(From The Japan Times May 17 issue)

終盤国会、重要法案の行方は

Only a month remains before the current Diet session ends (June 16). Although the Diet passed the fiscal 2010 budget March 24 in the fifth-fastest time of the postwar era, deliberations on other important bills have stalled.

These bills are related to strengthening the functions of the administration and important policy measures such as postal reform revision. Because the Upper House election is scheduled for July, it is difficult to extend the Diet session. As the Diet session approaches its end, some in the Democratic Party of Japan are calling for Diet affairs to be handled in a more forceful manner. But ramming bills through the Diet will deepen people's distrust of the party. A bill to strengthen control of personnel affairs for national servants has already been rammed through the Lower House.

The stalled Diet deliberations are attributable to the DPJ's failure to agree to the opposition's call to redress the money-politics problem. Although DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa is ready to speak in a closed session of the Lower House's Political Ethics Council about his political funds scandal, the DPJ may need to make more concessions to get the Diet moving.

Through bills linked to administrative functions, the DPJ hopes to give legal backing to the National Strategy Bureau, which will work out major policy goals for Japan, and to the Government Revitalization Unit, which cuts waste in the central government and organizations receiving money from it.

The party also hopes to increase the number of deputy chief Cabinet secretaries and aides to the prime minister, as well as establish the post of "senior researcher" to help ministers, senior vice ministers and senior secretaries, who are all lawmakers occupying top positions at government ministries.

The DPJ hopes to enact a bill to revise the Diet Law — a pet idea of Mr. Ozawa. It would prohibit bureaucrats, including the chief of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, from responding in Diet sessions. But this would deprive Diet members of the chance to grill bureaucrats on important issues while raising the risk of the Cabinet arbitrarily changing interpretations of the Constitution. The DPJ should rethink this bill.

残り会期1ヵ月となった通常国会で、重要法案の審議が滞っている。残る法案は政権の基盤や郵政改革など基本政策に関わる課題ばかり。民主党には国会運営に強気で臨むべきとの声もあるが、国民の信用を失うだけだ。

国会運営が進まない理由は、野党が要求する「政治とカネ」への対応に民主党が応えないことだ。小沢幹事長は衆院政治倫理審査会で事実関係を説明する予定だが、同党はより譲歩して要求を受け入れ審議を進めるべきだ。

民主党は国家戦略室を格上げし、行政刷新会議の設置を法的に明確にする政治主導確立法案の成立を望み、官房副長官や首相補佐官の増員、政務調査官の新設なども掲げている。

官僚の国会答弁を禁止する国会改革関連法案は、国会議員が官僚を追及する機会を奪い、政府が憲法解釈を一方的に変える危険性もはらむ。同法案について民主党は再考すべきだ。