Japanese Lawmakers Begin Talks on Political Funds Control

Tokyo, April 26 (Jiji Press)--Japanese lawmakers began discussions Friday on revising the political funds control law in the wake of a high-profile slush funds scandal involving the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Lawmakers from both ruling and opposition camps expressed their views on revising the law at the inaugural meeting of the special committee on political reform in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament.

While the LDP and opposition parties agreed on the need for lawmakers to have greater responsibility for political funds control law violations, they adopted different views on how to hold them accountable. The two sides also clashed over whether to continue allowing political donations by companies and organizations, and policy activity expenses.

On whether to introduce a guilt-by-association system to hold lawmakers responsible for failures to include funds in political funds reports prepared by their staff, Keitaro Ono of the LDP urged for clarification on lawmakers' responsibility for supervising those in charge of accounting.

Ono suggested that lawmakers should be required to prepare a document confirming that there are no errors in their political funds reports. If the lawmakers fail to check their reports properly and their accounting officials are penalized for unreported funds, the lawmakers should be slapped with civil rights suspensions, he said.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]