July 31, 2017
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
“Was the administration distorted?”
To begin with, Article 72 of the Constitution, which defines the duties of the Prime Minister, provides as follows:
“The Prime Minister, representing the Cabinet, submits bills, reports on general national affairs and foreign relations to the Diet and exercises control and supervision over various administrative branches.”
In other words, as should be obvious, the Prime Minister, as head of the executive branch, is originally charged with exercising “control and supervision” over administrative bodies.
Moreover, the Prime Minister heads the Headquarters for Japan’s Economic Revitalization, which proposed the National Strategic Special Zones as a means of breaking through the bureaucracy’s “bedrock regulations,” and also chairs the Council on National Strategic Special Zones.
Nevertheless, it makes no sense and is extremely difficult to understand why criticism should arise claiming that it would be outrageous if the Prime Minister’s intentions influenced the administrative process, or that “the administration was distorted,” as former Administrative Vice-Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Kihei Maekawa asserted.
When Prime Minister Abe himself was asked by those around him about the Kake Educational Institution issue in early March, he replied quite simply:
“There is no problem at all.
There have been as many as 25 cases of local governments providing land free of charge to educational corporations.”
Because he had no recollection whatsoever of extending any special favour to the Kake Educational Institution or instructing bureaucrats to do so, he probably never imagined that a “suspicion” would be manufactured merely because its chairman was a longtime friend.
Around the end of May, Prime Minister Abe complained to those around him:
“If I were going to issue instructions to MEXT, I would speak to the minister, not to bureaucrats.”
“Mr. Maekawa was the administrative vice-minister, so rather than complaining about what a Cabinet Office councillor had told him, he could have come to see me.
As for the claim that I ‘distorted the administration,’ it was the Japan Veterinary Medical Association that distorted it, wasn’t it?”
That is entirely reasonable.
Of course, it would be a different matter if there had been an illegal transfer of money or some other unlawful transaction between Prime Minister Abe and the chairman.
However, Yuichiro Tamaki, a Democratic Party member of the House of Representatives who was among those pursuing the allegations, also acknowledged on a television programme that there was no illegality.
To be continued.