Japan Diet Session Extended until July 22 for Key Bills

June 20, 2018

Tokyo- The House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, voted Wednesday to extend the current ordinary Diet session by 32 days until July 22 for further deliberations on key legislation.

The 150-day Diet session, convened in January, was to end on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, also head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and Natsuo Yamaguchi, leader of the LDP's coalition partner, Komeito, agreed on an extension proposal. The two parties later submitted the proposal to the chiefs of both chambers of the Diet.

By extending the session, the ruling camp aims to ensure enactment of work style reform legislation, which the Abe government regards as the most important bill in the current session, as well as other key bills, including one to introduce integrated resorts featuring casinos in Japan and another to add six seats to the House of Councillors, the 242-member upper chamber.

At a meeting of LDP executives in the morning, Abe indicated his resolve to make utmost efforts to win enactment of the key bills during the current Diet session.

Speaking to reporters, Yamaguchi criticized opposition parties for delaying Diet deliberations on important bills by introducing no-confidence motions against cabinet ministers one after another although they were certain to be voted down.

At a meeting of their secretaries-general, major opposition parties clarified their protest against the Diet session's extension and agreed to continue to grill Abe over favoritism scandals involving school operators Moritomo Gakuen and Kake Educational Institution.

"It's regrettable that we haven't been able to get to the bottom of the scandals," Tetsuro Fukuyama, secretary-general of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told reporters. He then requested the summoning of related officials, including Kotaro Kake, head of Kake Educational Institution, to the Diet for sworn testimonies. Jiji Press