Funds Control Law to Be Revised Again: A Step Forward toward Transparency of Political Funds

Editorial

16:12 JST, December 18, 2024

Bills, including one to revise the Political Funds Control Law with a focus on abolishing political activity funds, are likely to be passed during the current Diet session, which has only a short time remaining until it ends. This can be said to be a step forward.

As a result of negotiations between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the issue of whether to ban donations from companies and organizations has been postponed. However, the issue should be discussed in next year’s ordinary Diet session and settled by the end of the fiscal year.

With regard to reforms of political funds, the ruling and opposition parties have submitted as many as nine related bills to the current Diet session.

Among them, negotiations between the ruling and opposition parties ran into difficulties regarding bills to abolish political activity funds provided by each party to its senior members and other lawmakers that do not require the disclosure of how the money is spent. Disagreements arose because the LDP stuck to creating a special expenditure item for which individual names are not required to be disclosed.

However, the LDP withdrew the creation of this exception and decided to agree to the bill submitted by seven opposition parties, including the CDPJ, so this bill was passed in the House of Representatives.

It appears that the LDP was driven by the judgment that the administration of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba would get stuck in a more difficult position if reforms were not realized in the current Diet session. The LDP may have been reminded once again of the harsh situation facing ruling parties that lack a majority.

In addition, two other bills were also sent to the House of Councillors: one submitted jointly by Komeito and the Democratic Party for the People to establish a third-party body in the Diet to monitor political funds; and the other by the LDP to revise the law to create a database of political funds reports and make them accessible on the internet.

Although the reforms are insufficient in some respects, it is noteworthy that the ruling and opposition parties met each other halfway and reached an agreement. It is important to place political funds under public scrutiny and ensure fairness in political activities.

This time, the LDP’s leadership left the negotiations with the opposition parties to amend the bills to working-level LDP members at the lower house’s Special Committee on Political Reform. Normally, the LDP secretary general and the party’s chairperson of the Policy Research Council should have had the opportunity to carefully listen to the opposition parties’ opinions and search for points of agreement.

The failure to make such efforts may have led the LDP to completely concede to the opposition parties. If the LDP cannot even take the lead on political reforms, it will hardly be able to coordinate difficult future policy issues that will put a burden on the public.

Meanwhile, the lower house’s Deliberative Council on Political Ethics met for the first time in about nine months. Lawmakers who belonged to the former Abe faction and others who failed to record funds they received in their political funds reports began to explain themselves.

Former Defense Minister Tomomi Inada said that she was unaware of the refund from the faction or that the money had not been recorded in the report. No new facts came to light from the other lawmakers who gave their explanations, either.

How much point is there in the council, which has no legally binding power, continuing to pursue a case into which the special investigation squad of the Tokyo District Prosecutors Office has already completed its investigation?

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 18, 2024)