My opinion of this week(641):
"Any political parties are to be dissolved if they could not attain their
manifesto shown in general election."
Every Friday night at 8 o'clock, I watch a variety show once in a while
titled@"If I were selected to Prime Minister of Japan" , featured by
comedian Hikaru Ohta. Several comedians, TV talents, lawmakers, critics,
etc. are called to attend the show to discuss various political and social
issues. Hikaru Ohta presents a number of political and social issues for
open discussion and the theme set by Ohta are voted by all attendants
on that night. Total polls are separately made by audiences who watch TV
show at that moment.
It is a kind of interesting TV show by itself. Whether or not I agree with
the final result of the vote, discussion made at each stage on various issues
by various group of people is very interesting. I put here the page which
listed up the a number of themes in the past for your reference.
As to the theme set last night and the result of poll, I do not agree with
them at all. The theme says; Any political parties are to be dissolved if they
could not attain their manifesto." I also do not agree with the final vote
that affirmed the theme.
Liberal Democratic Party finally announced their manifesto yesterday and all
parties in Japan now present their manifestoes preparing for coming general
election. The TV show explained major contents of manifesto of each parties
and reviewed those key issues on manifestoes presented by each parties.
Under such very limited time, the discussion on validity on manifests of
each parties was not good enough at all. The attendants, especially from
political world, were very limited in number and quality for lawmakers from
House of Preventatives is almost zero for that is dissolved right now.
The major problem is not necessarily the contents of discussion but the theme
itself. The theme asks whether or not the manifesto is attained 100%. It
seems that the theme does not set the level of attainment. In other word, the
theme seems to expect that all items of manifests must be attained 100%. The
theme do not talk anything about the rate of attainment or level of attainment
at that moment. Some are already finished and some are still going on at that
moment.
In any cases or in any occasions, attainment level would never be 100%. For the
same one case, some evaluates attainment level is 100%, but some other evaluate
attainment level is only 50%. It does not almost make sense to evaluate the
process without setting some objective scale of evaluation. Ohta's theme seems
to set no scale to judge the level of attainment. It is never to be zero or a
hundred when all major manifestoes are included.
What is passing mark? And what is fail mark? No one, no organization of any
kinds can never provide such scale to judge whether or not each political
parties pass that manifest test. The only judges who can do that judgment are
electorates by themselves. They would vote for the judges in general election.
I was shocked to see the result of the vote for Ohta's proposal in that show.
The suggestion was affirmed by 12 vs. 6 votes. Some lawmakers at Upper Houses
including lawmakers of Democratic Party of Japan affirmed the the proposal.
It does not make sense at all.
I was further shocked to see the result of total vote from general TV
watchers.The proposal was overwhelmingly affirmed by 82% of votes. It's
amazing to see it as a matter of fact. Do those people really understand
meaning of manifest and whole process to evaluate them through general
election?
I would really appreciate this vote very much if those 82% of people think
Liberal Democratic Party should step down from the power for they could not
attain their manifestos promised in the last general elections four years
ago.
2009/8/1
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(642):
Japan's first lay judge trial and sense of the common people
Japan's first lay judge trial concluded Thursday with a mixed group of
citizens and professional judges convicting a man of murder and sentencing
him to 15 years in prison while prosecutor office had demanded penalty of 16
years in prison.
One of newspapers reported that 16 years in prison is almost full amount
("mangaku" in Japanese ) against the demand from the prosecutor. The word
"mangaku" is often used in the case of negotiation on summer bonus payment
between employees and labor union. I had some uncomfortable feeling on such
word in the article when I read it.
According to the further explanation of the article, most professional
people in legal world such as prosecutors, attorneys and judges forecasted
that term of in prison on this case is between 12 to 13 years at most. So
many of those professional people in legal world were rather surprised with
this longer punishment such as 15 years. The attorney who is in charge of this
case expressed his disappointment saying he will appeal the case to upper
court.
Some other legal professionals said this judgment is really a reflection
of common sense of general public as expected to start this lay judge trial
system in this country.
When it comes to the term of imprison, I personally assumed much longer
term even such as 20 to 25 years imprison. I was rather surprised to know
the fact that the prosecutor demanded only 16 years. I am not a professional
man at all on legal matters but I knew the murder case at this time has
been argued whether or not the man in charge had some strong motive to kill
an old lady. The prosecutor insisted that the murder had been committed with
a kind of clear intention to kill the lady.
My very basic and primitive question is why the murder case like this
is considered not so serious as all those professional legal people
including prosecutors judged. My personal judgment as a citizen who has
a common sense of moral and value of life is quite different from those
common criteria about moral and value of life in legal world. I cannot
believe that punishment in legal world for this case is assumed only 12
years in prison. My personal feeling is that the term should be 20 years
or more much longer than 12 years at least.
I believe there are many citizens who agree with my thought. If I were
there in the court as one of citizen judges, I must have insisted that
the prosecutor's demand for the term of imprison is wrong. The term
should be much longer although I know the fact such assertion would
never be accepted by three other professional judges and even other
elected citizen judges.
I don't think I am quite eccentric about this judgment. I am not only
talking about the matter from legal points of views. I am talking about
the moral value and the value of life are more important than laws to
judge what is right and what is wrong on our life and society.
The purpose of introducing this lay judge system now is exactly to
reflect such common value standard of general citizens to legal world.
I strongly appreciated the meaning of the fact that lay judge trial
system has just started in Japan in many respects.
2009/8/8
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(643)F
Preference tax for securities dealings should be continued
If the change of power happened on August 30 as the result of general
election, one big question would rise on whether or not Democratic
Party of Japan will continue the present preference tax for securities
dealings which has been executed for many years by Liberal Democratic
Party and Komei New Party coalition. The tax for for income for securities
dealings was conventionally 20% in the past but the preference 10% tax
has been introduced by coalition fronts in the past ten years or so.
The preference tax has helped to promote the dealings of securities such
as stocks by small individual investors since its introduction. The main
investors of securities are rich individuals and business enterprises and
so on. To activate securities market in Japan, government authorities
thought it is necessary to increase a lot more small individual investors
in the securities market. Japanese securities market are far behind from
securities market in US in this respects.
The introduction of preference tax seemed to work out fine in that respect
so far. But the argument to terminate this preference tax come up these
days because of financial difficulties of the nation. Communist Party and
Social Democratic Party are obvious about abolishment of such tax preference.
There are some slit in opinion about this inside of Democratic Party of Japan
as stated above. It is very possible for DPJ will terminate the tax for
the party must work with Social Democratic Party and Kokuminshinto Party
as a coalition front after the general election. While Kokuminshinto agrees
to continue preference tax, Social Democratic Party will not agree with it.
Then it is possible that DPJ will terminate the preference tax rate to keep
coalition fronts as agreed already.
I don't agree with such movement. I strongly suggest DPJ to keep the
preference tax at this time even after the change of power happened by
the general election.
Because the preference tax is very necessary to activate securities market
which starts moving up gradually right now together with up turn of economic
growth indices such as GDP in early August. Activation of securities market
is to be very necessary economic policy measures in along with several other
measures of economic growth conducted by the present government. Those
economic growth measure should be basically followed even by the change of
power which happen soon on August 30th.
2009/8/22
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(644):
Ugly Liberal Democratic Party
It was very fine on Friday. It was hot and very humid throught the day. At
around four o'clock in the evening, I went out to pick up mails from mail
box and felt very high temparature and humidity. At that moment I thought
this kind of hot weather is very necessary for aglicultural products such
as rice and various vegetables which were not grown so well due to bad
weather during past a month or so. I picked up several mails and came
back to living room which was cool and comfortable.
Several political leaflets were found together with a few direct mails on the
table of my living room. I had almost no interest at all about those leaflets
for election campaign including the leaflets of the party I supported at
this time. I could guess the contents of all leaflets and I had no interest
any of them any more for I had already finished eary voting a couple of days
ago at minicipal office. I was about to put them all into dust box but
found one small size pamphlet consist of five pages. That was a pamphlet
issued by Liberal Democratic Party to attack their enemy Democratic Party
of Japan. The total design of pamphlet is a kind of ugly filled with dirty
attacking words against their enemy.
I was intetesed in it and started checking contents of each five pages. The
title of top page says:" You will be shocked to know the real nature of
DPJ. The party has some secret political programs which were not disclosed
for the people. Don't get reamed by the party." I was amazed with the
statement and checked top titles of each pages. They are something
like the followings.: "1st chapter; Revolution plan by DPJ and labor unions;
2nd chapter; Nikkyouso(Japan Teachers Union) and their biased education plan;
3rd chapter;Deprivation of dignity of Japanese people is underway".
I have no time and intend to explain all of them in detail and they are not
even worth making any comments on them as far as I briefly cheked them. The
writer wrote something about party's parental care, some diplomatic policies,
education calicurum at school and so on on each of those chapters without
making any colabolation each other on the theme of each chapteres. There are
no logics at all and they include a lot of demagogic statements without any
facts and statistics to support such statements. I really don't understand
what this party tried to insist.
The pamphelets are something like many of those ugly leaflets distributed a
lot by very radical labor unions existed many years ago in this country.
I was surprised to see that LDP, the party in power right now distributed
such abundant volume of useless pamphlets to millions people in Japan. They
must have spent a huge amount of money a part of which must have come from
subsidies for political parties which is the tax people of Japan. What a big
waste it is!
I just wonder who in the party are doing this sort of silly works. Did
Prime Minister Aso approve to print and distribute this kind of silly
documents? I don't say it is against law of any kinds. But I believe it
is against the basic ethics of public political activities approved for
political parties in Japan. The contents of brochures are really shameful
jsut to attack their polical enemy to get a vote in the election.
The best way for DPJ to encounter such useless denunciation agaist their
party from LDP is to ignor any of those demagogic statement. It is sure
that LDP will be punished severely on the election to be held on Sunday.
I was very anxious to see the face of Prime Minister Taro Aso on that day
when the change of power occurred as a result of the election. What will
happen to the party after the change of power? I have a serious worry about
the party. They must be revitalised as a strong and a healthy opposition
front against ruling DPJ. That is quite necessary for the advancement of
democracy in this country.
2009/8/29
Tadashi HAYASE
English Home Page
Japanese Home Page