Building on a chapter published on November 11, 2018, and revisiting a chapter first published on April 5, 2017 under the title “A Minority of Left-Wing Lawyers Effectively Control the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and Local Bar Associations,” this essay examines the reality of anti-security-policy resolutions adopted at JFBA general meetings.
It critically portrays the distortions of Japan’s postwar legal community through the structure by which highly political resolutions are passed by fewer than one-third of the full membership through attendance and proxies, the dominance of activist minorities, decision-making without genuine debate, and the activities of JFBA officials who helped spread the comfort women issue internationally.

2019-03-20
Once again, the banner of “anti-security policy” was raised by fewer than one-third of all members at the time.
Can that truly be called the “collective will” of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations?

The chapter I published on 2018-11-11 under the title,
Etsuro Totsuka, who held an important post in the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, spread internationally the outrageous definition that they were not comfort women but sex slaves,
has entered the official hashtag ranking at No. 47 for the bar examination.
The following is a chapter I originally published on 2017-04-05 under the title,
A minority of left-wing lawyers is effectively controlling the Japan Federation of Bar Associations and local bar associations,
and it is now ranked No. 3 in Ameba’s Best 5.
The following is from today’s front-page feature article in the Sankei Shimbun, boldly headlined,
Unrealistic Anti-Security Resolution, The Bar Association Seventy-Two Years After the War.
It is also, quite unintentionally, an article proving that NHK is an organization ruled by left-wing infantilists.
On Sunday, Okoshi, who featured a story about Ono of Okinawa on a nighttime sports program, proved correct what my close friend, a notable man of letters, had said about him, namely that this man’s “smile” is an evil smile….
A smile concealing ulterior motives.
Ono is trying to create a professional baseball team in Okinawa….
No one would find that strange….
But there must have been not a few discerning people who felt sick when they heard him say, “I am thinking of doing it together with the Taiwan League….”
To begin with, a top exam student joined the University of Tokyo baseball club….
I do not want such a person talking as though he loves baseball without limit….
Not a few genuine lovers of baseball must have thought so, and that feeling is the correct one.
What exactly was Okoshi trying to say by putting together that feature….
It was a thoroughly malicious program….
Because he was lending support to “Okinawan independence theory” by using baseball.
The emphasis in the body text apart from the headline, and the portions between asterisks, are mine.
“Rather than being unconvinced, I simply cannot understand it.”
May 30, 2014, the 65th regular general meeting of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, held in Sendai.
Hiroshi Yasunaga, aged seventy-seven, who took the microphone to ask a question, could not conceal his irritation at the executive side’s reply.
The agenda item was “A resolution once again opposing the approval of the exercise of the right of collective self-defense and reaffirming the significance of constitutionalism.”
Yasunaga, taking into account developments around the Senkaku Islands, Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture, amid China’s growing military expansion, asked the executive side for its view on how Japan should act in the event of a national emergency.
“If China were to attempt to occupy the Senkaku Islands, could the Self-Defense Forces resist.
Could Japan seek support from the United States.
Have you made your proposal only after reaching a clear conclusion on these points?”
The vice president at the time replied, “The JFBA has never before shown a specific direction or view on such matters.
Given the nature of the organization called the JFBA, there is also the question of whether it should present such views at all.”
While saying that “it is necessary to consider the matter,” he added that “it would not be appropriate to answer how we think about it now.”
Yasunaga felt that this was an abstract argument that refused to face “the crisis that exists right now.”
At that time Yasunaga was merely an ordinary member, but in April 2012 he became president of the Saga Bar Association, and until March of the following year he also served concurrently as a JFBA board member.
Whenever statements opposing collective self-defense and the like came before the board as agenda items, he criticized them from the standpoint of real international circumstances, saying, “Do not avert your eyes,” but he was completely isolated.
“My opinions are always rejected by an overwhelming majority.
There were people who whispered to me after the board meetings, ‘Actually, I agree with you,’ but….”
Yasunaga considers it natural in a sense that a body of legal professionals will sometimes take on political coloration, insofar as politics too is fundamentally driven by law.
The problem, he argues, is that the conclusion is fixed in one direction from the beginning, and there is no real debate.
“It is the road to self-destruction.”
At the same 2014 JFBA general meeting, the person who stood on the exact opposite side from Yasunaga and spoke in favor of the resolution was Tatsuo Suzuki, aged seventy-six.
“We must, with the strength of all, cut off Abe Shinzo’s war politics.
Is that not the attitude the people should take in a situation where war is now about to occur?”
According to Suzuki, after participating in the 1960 security-treaty protests while a student at the University of Tokyo, he joined NHK, and while stationed in Nagasaki he also took part in the struggle to block the entry of the U.S. Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise into Sasebo.
He was even once briefly detained by the authorities, and out of respect for the lawyer who handled his case, he studied law and passed the bar examination at the unusual age of forty-eight.
Suzuki has formed, together with Shunkichi Takayama, aged seventy-six, who ran and lost in last year’s JFBA presidential election as part of the “anti-mainstream faction,” a group called “Association for a JFBA of Constitutionalism and Human Rights.”
While he evaluates the fact that the JFBA executive, composed of the “mainstream faction,” opposed collective self-defense, he differs from the executive on a series of judicial reforms such as expanding the legal profession population.
Though his views are like oil and water compared with Yasunaga, who stood to ask questions at the general meeting, he too doubts the way the executive moved to a vote without answering properly.
“The JFBA must engage in debate.
Not doing so is the road to self-destruction.”
As a result of the vote, the resolution was passed by a majority in favor.
Collecting proxy forms.
Among the JFBA’s member lawyers, numbering 39,015 as of March, are people with all kinds of thoughts and beliefs from right to left.
Why then are highly political resolutions, such as opposition to approval of the exercise of collective self-defense, so easily passed.
A certain lawyer belonging to the Osaka Bar Association confided, “A minority of left-wing lawyers is effectively controlling the JFBA and the local bar associations.”
Many lawyers are busy with their daily work and are either indifferent to the administration of the association or keep a certain distance because they dislike anti-establishment activism.
Meanwhile, a minority who enthusiastically devote themselves to the association’s affairs seize the initiative in the organization, gather proxies for the general meeting, which is the highest decision-making body, attend in force, and dominate the floor.
This condition itself is plainly one in which countries with powerful intelligence agencies, such as China, South Korea, and North Korea, can easily carry out influence operations, or rather one in which even an elementary-school-level mind can understand that influence operations have long been carried out and have likely achieved perfect results.
Why has the JFBA gone all the way to the United Nations to engage in fabricating the comfort women issue and spreading it internationally.
Etsuro Totsuka, who held a key post in the JFBA, spread internationally the outrageous definition that they were not comfort women but sex slaves, and even boasted of it proudly in magazines such as Sekai Nippo.
When I searched for him on Wikipedia, I was even more shocked.
I will introduce that in the next chapter.
There was no flaw in the procedural handling of the general meeting at which the “Once Again—” resolution was passed.
However, the number physically present was 691, and proxy attendance amounted to 8,782.
Once again, the banner of “anti-security policy” was raised by fewer than one-third of all members at the time.
Can that truly be called the “collective will” of the JFBA?
(Titles and honorifics omitted.)