By KEI KOBAYASHI/ Staff Writer
April 26, 2024 at 07:00 JST
Takashi Endo, the Diet affairs committee chairman of Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party), responds to questions from reporters at the Diet building on April 4. (Kei Kobayashi)
The Lower House shelved plans to lift a ban on the use of tablet computers in plenary sessions despite an earlier decision to accelerate digitalization of procedures.
The move came during an April 4 meeting where lawmakers from multiple parliamentary groups expressed concern about the “authority” of proceedings being compromised if tablet PCs were used on a daily basis.
Lawmakers had been discussing how to rely on tablet PCs and other paperless solutions at plenary sessions and committee meetings.
During the April 4 meeting, the views of more than one former speaker and vice speaker of the Lower House were shared on the use of tablet electronics.
All of them concluded that lifting the ban would be “difficult” with one citing the “issue concerning authority,” according to a person who was present.
Shunichi Yamaguchi, chairman of the Committee on Rules and Administration of the Lower House, told the gathering that Bunmei Ibuki, a former Lower House speaker, insisted that politicians would never be forgiven if they buried their heads in online research after ending the room for plenary sessions.
He said Ibuki believed that politicians “should enter only after putting everything into their mind.”
Takashi Endo, the Diet affairs panel chairman of Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party), pointed out that tablet devices can already be used at many committees within the Lower House.
“How can the use of tablet computers damage authority?” he asked. “I cannot understand. Is this a case of it can’t be helped? Is this what the world we live in has come down to?”
Taking issue with Endo, Yamaguchi insisted, “Only a small number of politicians currently use tablet electronics.”
Referring to initial plans on the reform of Diet proceedings, he said electronic devises were to “be tried and verified at committees first, so that our future course could be then determined.”
He said the ban “cannot be lifted without debate.”
In the interim, the paperless publication of committee reports was approved. Another decision that got the nod was to disclose details online of lawmakers’ visits to destinations outside Japan.
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