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On November 26, the special secrets protection legislation was railroaded
through the House of Representatives by the ruling parties. After the
proposal was approved by a majority consisting of the ruling parties, Your Party and others, DPJ President Banri Kaieda responded to reporters'
questions inside the Diet building.
Kaieda stated, "November 26 marks the start of a ruling party stampede. The massive ruling party majority has acted in a majoritarian way, over-riding the voices of concern and protest from the public and calls in the Diet stating that 'more thorough discussion should be undertaken'. I cannot help but feel enraged. I believe that this is the moment when we caught a glimpse of the iron fist hidden in the Abe administration's velvet glove."
With regard to the party's ongoing response in the Diet, Kaieda stressed:
"There will be no change in the DPJ's stance of participating in the Diet debate and putting forward our point of view." With regard to deliberations in the House of Councillors, he said, "I would like the controversial points of the legislation to be properly discussed once again. While the bill was in the House of Representatives we prepared a counterproposal and I would like us to challenge the ruling parties with this." Kaieda also pointed out that the Diet had been ignored on two levels, during the debate and the process leading up to the vote in the House of Representatives, these being,
(1) the government did not respect the will of the Diet with respect to the content of the legislative proposal, and (2) only regional public hearings were held, and a central public hearing was not convened, and the content of the legislation was not enriched through debate in the Diet. He stressed the need to establish a third-party body that would enable the Diet to be involved in an active manner, and called for time to be taken so that public opinion could be reflected in the legislation.
During the debate over the legislation, Kaieda said, the DPJ had submitted a total of five counterproposals, and put forward the party's point of view.
He stressed, "I believe that we have fulfilled our role as opposition party." On the other hand, he expressed the opinion that due to the rough and ready Diet administration being practiced by the ruling parties,
discussion with the ruling parties had been insufficient. Kaieda said that
the DPJ would decide in the near future whether to resubmit a revised version of its counterproposals to the House of Councillors or whether to vigorously pursue the problems with the revised legislative proposal submitted by the LDP, New Komeito, the Japan Restoration Party and Your Party.
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