As the budget bill for fiscal 2023 has passed the Diet, this year’s ordinary Diet session has entered the second half.

There is a long list of policy issues the legislature needs to address, including the government’s plan to ramp up defense spending, the proposed extension of the lifespan of nuclear reactors and measures to deal with the nation’s low birthrates.

But one dispute requires special attention and actions to clarify the related facts.

The dispute is over the change in the interpretation of a Broadcast Law provision requiring political fairness in content aired by broadcasters.

Internal administrative documents from the telecommunications ministry have come to light showing that a close aide to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe persistently pressured the ministry to effectively change the interpretation of the provision.

Opposition parties asked government officials about the documents at the Diet including during Budget Committee sessions, but no sufficient and convincing explanation about the matter has been provided.

Despite the involvement of the prime minister’s office, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has done nothing but leave the matter entirely up to the ministry to handle.

Sanae Takaichi, state minister of economic security, who made remarks that reflected the change in the interpretation at the Diet when she headed the ministry, has declared the documents to be a “fabrication.”

She has said she would resign as a lawmaker if it turned out the documents were authentic. Takaichi’s “fabrication” remarks have shifted the focus of attention away from the core issue of the changed interpretation.

Takaichi once said she would avoid using the word fabrication, admitting it was too strong. But then she started uttering the word again and repeatedly.

Referring to the records of a ministry meeting over the matter that the documents say she attended, Takaichi has claimed that it did not take place even though an investigation by the ministry has found it highly likely that the session was held.

The excerpts of the session produced by the ministry show a specific date, a place and the names of the attendees. Since the documents were made by bureaucrats at the ministry and the descriptions they contain were not confirmed in advance by Takaichi or other people involved, there is no ruling out the possibility that the records do not accurately reflect what Takaichi and other participants said.

But it is difficult to believe her assertion that there was no such a meeting.

The ministry says it has been unable to confirm the factuality of the records in the documents. One major reason for this is that many of the people involved no longer have solid memories of the meeting, which was held eight years ago.

Can Takaichi not understand how seriously she damages the public trust in official documents and the government itself by calling the documents a fabrication?

Takaichi’s attitude could intimidate bureaucrats at a time when strong political leadership in policymaking makes it all the more important to keep records of the words and actions of politicians for examining and assessing the policymaking process.

In one Upper House Budget Committee session, apparently irritated by an opposition lawmaker who kept questioning her about this matter, Takaichi even said, “Please stop asking me questions if you cannot believe my answers.”

She withdrew this statement after she was, unusually, admonished by the chairman of the Budget Committee, but the fact remains that her reply reflects her lack of awareness of her responsibility as a Cabinet member to explain herself to the Diet.

We have also been disappointed by Hiroyuki Konishi of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, who has obtained the documents and brought the matter to light.

Konishi recently derided the way the Lower House’s Commission on the Constitution holds weekly meetings and criticized the editorial stance of Fuji Television Network, which reported on his remarks concerning the commission, referring to the network’s past coverage as well. Konishi claimed the broadcaster has violated the Broadcast Law.

Such comments could be seen as blatant intervention in broadcasting and undermine his own credibility as a lawmaker.

Konishi must not want to see public attention drift from the government’s questionable move to change the interpretation of the law.

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 2