TOKYO – Amid ongoing tension between the ruling and opposition parties in the Diet, opposition parties agreed to resume deliberations on bills in the House of Councillors on Tuesday, after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi acceded to some of their demands
At a meeting of the House of Councillors’ Audit Committee on Monday, Takaichi expressed her intention to attend the intensive discussions in the Budget Committee of the upper house, as well as the debate among party leaders. The opposition had demanded she appear at both
“If requested, I will thoroughly attend and provide responses,” Takaichi said in answer to a question from Tadatomo Yoshida, an opposition lawmaker of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan
Yoshihiko Isozaki, the Liberal Democratic Party chair in the Diet Affairs Committee of the upper house, met with his counterpart Yoshitaka Saito of the CDPJ, in the Diet Building prior to the Audit Committee meeting
Isozaki told Saito that the LDP would agree to hold intensive deliberations and other sessions. They are working toward holding a leaders’ debate on July 15
Saito subsequently met with the five opposition parties’ chairs for the House of Councillors’ Diet affairs committee and they decided to resume deliberations on bills
In the upper house, deliberations have stalled on 16 bills submitted by the government, including an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code to revise the retrial system
Meanwhile, in the House of Representatives, the opposition parties continue to demand that the ruling bloc abandon efforts to pass two bills — one on reducing the number of seats in the lower house and another related to the second capital concept
Opposition parties have stated they will not agree to begin deliberations on the bill to amend the Imperial House Law unless the ruling bloc accepts their demand
