Ex-Japanese Justice Min. Yasuoka Dies at 79

April 20, 2019

Tokyo- Former Japanese Justice Minister Okiharu Yasuoka died of pancreatic cancer at a hospital in Tokyo on Friday. He was 79.

Yasuoka was also a former House of Representatives lawmaker of the Liberal Democratic Party.

After working as judge and lawyer, Yasuoka, a native of the southwestern Japan city of Kagoshima, won a Lower House seat for the first time in the 1972 election, in which he ran as an independent candidate. He was additionally endorsed by the LDP after the election.

He was elected to the Lower House 13 times in total.

Yasuoka joined the move to launch the now-defunct New Frontier Party in 1994, but returned to the LDP the following year.

He served as justice minister under the second cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, which was formed in July 2000, and under the revamped cabinet of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, launched in August 2008.

Yasuoka also served as head of the Lower House's Commission on the Constitution and chief of the LDP's Headquarters for the Promotion of Revision of the Constitution.

After his retirement in 2017, Yasuoka served as special adviser to the LDP constitutional panel. Jiji Press