米ニューヨークタイムズ紙が、安倍首相の「私が憲法解釈を決める」発言にたいして、厳しく批判する社説を掲載している。憲法９条の条文を引きながら、「安倍首相は、他のナショナリストのように、憲法の条文によって示された平和主義を拒絶している」と指摘するなど、かなり厳しい批判だ。
War, Peace and the Law – NYTimes.com
社説は、「安倍首相は、改正手続きよりも彼自身の再解釈を通じて憲法の基本の変更に恐ろしいほど接近している」と指摘。「安倍首相は、憲法が日本領土内での守備的役割しか許していないにもかかわらず、日本軍を攻撃的に、日本の領土外で同盟国と共同作戦ができるようにする法律を通そうとしている」と述べて、安倍首相が国会で、「最高責任者は私だ。政府の答弁に私が責任を持って、その上で選挙で審判を受ける」と述べたことについても「これは立憲主義についての誤った見地である」、憲法改正をもくろむのは自由だが、そのプロセスが面倒で不人気だからといって「彼が法の支配を否定することには道理がない」と批判している。最後には、「もし安倍首相が彼の見解を国に押しつけ続けるなら、これまで憲法の平和条項についての態度表明を控えてきた最高裁こそが彼の解釈を拒否し、政治指導者は誰も個人的な意思で憲法を書き換えることはできないことを明確にすべきだろう」とも述べている。
欧米諸国が安倍首相に向けるまなざしは厳しい。
War, Peace and the Law
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDFEB. NY.com 19, 2014
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan is getting dangerously close to altering a cornerstone of the national Constitution through his own reinterpretation rather than by formal amendment.
Mr. Abe wants to pass a law allowing the Japanese military to act offensively and in coordination with allies outside Japanese territory, even though it is accepted that the Constitution allows only a defensive role on Japanese territory. He has moved aggressively to bolster the military after years of cuts. And, like other nationalists, he rejects the pacifism exemplified by an article in the Constitution.
“The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes,” it states. Successive governments have agreed that a constitutional amendment would be required before the Japanese could take a broader role. The civil servants of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau in the Office of the Prime Minister, which checks the constitutionality of new laws to prevent the abuse of power, have agreed with this interpretation.
To help push the bureau to reverse that position, Mr. Abe broke normal procedure in August and appointed as the agency’s chief an outsider, Ichiro Komatsu, a Foreign Ministry official sympathetic to the idea of collective defense. A group of experts picked by Mr. Abe is expected to back him up when an opinion on the matter is released in April. In Parliament recently, Mr. Abe implied that the people could pass judgment on him in the next election, but that is an erroneous view of constitutionalism. He could, of course, move to amend the Constitution. That he finds the process too cumbersome or unpopular is no reason for him to defy the rule of law.
If Mr. Abe were to persist in forcing his view on the nation, the Supreme Court, which has long abstained from taking a position on the Constitution’s pacifist clause, should reject his interpretation and make clear that no leader can rewrite the Constitution by personal will.