Quoting a Sankei feature, this text portrays how a JFBA (Japan Federation of Bar Associations) assembly passed an anti-security resolution amid abstract answers and an avoidance of concrete crisis scenarios.
It argues that while most members remain disengaged due to daily workload, a motivated minority gathers proxy forms, turns out en masse, and effectively dominates the general assembly.
The piece then questions whether such outcomes represent the organization’s true “general will,” and warns that this structure may be vulnerable to external influence operations.

2019-01-30.
Meanwhile, a minority that works zealously on association affairs seizes the initiative in the organization, collects proxy forms even for the general assembly—the highest decision-making body—turns out in a large group, and dominates the floor.
A chapter I published on 2018-12-16 under the title “Why Did the JFBA Go So Far as to Visit the United Nations to Fabricate the Comfort Women Issue and Spread It to the International Community?” is now ranked 26th in Ameba’s official hashtag ranking under “Bar Exam.”
This chapter reveals that the JFBA is a textbook example of the very pattern described by communists and totalitarians who make propaganda their trade: if they can insert five percent of agents into a targeted organization, they can completely control it.
A chapter I published on 2017-04-05 titled “A Minority of Left-Wing Lawyers Effectively Runs the JFBA and Local Bar Associations” is now among the top searches on Ameba.
What follows is from today’s Sankei Shimbun front-page feature headlined “Unrealistic Anti-Security Resolution,” with the large caption “Bar Associations, 72 Years After the War.”
All emphasis in the text other than the original headings, and all … passages, are mine.
“I can’t accept it—more than that, I can’t understand it.”
On May 30, Heisei 26 (2014), at the 65th regular general assembly of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) held in Sendai City, Hiroshi Yasunaga (77), who took the microphone to ask questions, could not hide his irritation at the executive leadership’s answers.
The agenda item was “A resolution (draft) that again opposes permitting the exercise of the right of collective self-defense and confirms the significance of constitutionalism.”
Taking into account developments such as China’s increasing military expansion around the Senkaku Islands (Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture), Yasunaga pressed the leadership on what actions should be taken in the event of a “Japan contingency.”
“If China moves to occupy the Senkaku Islands, can the Self-Defense Forces resist.”
“Can we ask the United States for support.”
“Have you reached a clear conclusion before making this proposal.”
The vice president at the time replied, “Up to now, the JFBA has never indicated specific directions or ways of thinking.”
“Given the nature of the JFBA as an organization, whether we should indicate such things is itself an issue, I believe.”
While saying “it is necessary to consider,” he added that “it is not appropriate to answer how we should think at this time.”
Yasunaga felt it was an abstract argument that refused to face “the crisis right in front of us.”
At the time, Yasunaga was merely an ordinary member, but in April of Heisei 24 (2012) he became president of the Saga Prefectural Bar Association and concurrently served as a JFBA director until March of the following year.
When statements opposing collective self-defense and the like came up on the board’s agenda, he criticized them from the standpoint of real international circumstances, saying, “Don’t avert your eyes,” but he became completely isolated.
“My views are always rejected by an overwhelming majority.”
“After the board meeting, some people would whisper to me, ‘Actually, I agree with you, sensei,’ but…”
Yasunaga believes that because politics ultimately moves through law, it is in some sense natural for a legal professionals’ group’s opinions to carry political color.
The problem, he argues, is that conclusions are decided in one direction from the outset, and there is no real debate.
“It’s a road to self-destruction.”
At the same JFBA general assembly in Heisei 26 (2014), Tatsuo Suzuki (76) delivered a pro-resolution speech from a stance diametrically opposed to Yasunaga’s.
“We must cut off Abe (Shinzo)’s war politics with the power of everyone.”
“Isn’t that the attitude the people should take amid a situation in which war is about to break out.”
According to Suzuki, while at the University of Tokyo he participated in the 1960 Anpo protests, then joined NHK, and at his posting in Nagasaki he also took part in the movement to block the U.S. Navy nuclear aircraft carrier Enterprise from entering Sasebo.
He has the unusual background of having once been temporarily detained by the authorities, then studying law out of respect for the lawyer who handled his own case, and passing the bar exam at age 48.
Together with Toshiyoshi Takayama (76) and others—“anti-mainstream” figures who ran in last year’s JFBA presidential election and lost—Suzuki formed the group “Association for a JFBA Aimed at the Constitution and Human Rights.”
While he evaluates the fact that the JFBA leadership, composed of the “mainstream,” opposed collective self-defense, he differs from the leadership regarding judicial reforms such as expanding the number of legal professionals.
Though his views are like oil and water compared with Yasunaga’s, he still questions the fact that the leadership did not answer properly and pushed the vote through.
“The JFBA must debate.”
“Not doing so is a road to self-destruction.”
In the vote, the resolution draft passed by a majority.
Collecting proxy forms.
Among the JFBA’s member attorneys (39,015 as of March) are people with a wide range of ideologies and beliefs, from right to left.
So why do politically charged resolution drafts—such as opposing permitting the exercise of collective self-defense—pass so easily.
One attorney belonging to the Osaka Bar Association confides, “A minority of left-wing lawyers effectively runs the JFBA and the local bar associations.”
Many attorneys are consumed by their daily work, are indifferent to the association’s management, or dislike anti-establishment activism and keep a certain distance.
Meanwhile, a minority that works enthusiastically on association affairs seizes the initiative in the organization, collects proxy forms even for the general assembly—the highest decision-making body—turns out in a large group, and dominates the floor.
This very state is one that makes it easy for countries with powerful intelligence services—such as China, South Korea, and North Korea—to conduct influence operations, or a state in which such operations have been continuously conducted and have likely produced perfect results—an reality that even an elementary-school-level mind can understand.
Why did the JFBA go so far as to visit the United Nations to fabricate the comfort women issue and spread it to the international community.
Etsuro Totsuka, who held a key post in the JFBA at the time, spread abroad an outrageous definition—saying they were not comfort women but “sex slaves”—and then boasted of it in magazines such as Sekai Nippo.
When I searched for him on Wikipedia, I was even more shocked.
I will introduce this in the next chapter.
There was no defect in the assembly’s procedural steps by which the “Once again—” resolution draft was adopted.
However, the number of attendees was 691, while proxy attendance by委任状 numbered 8,782.
With fewer than one-third of all members at the time, the “anti-security” flag was waved yet again.
Can that be called the JFBA’s “collective will.”
(Honorifics omitted).