LDP Seeks 1-Year Lawmaker Term Extension in Emergency Clause

Tokyo, April 23 (Jiji Press)--Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Thursday called for allowing the terms of lawmakers to be extended for about a year under a proposed emergency clause as part of efforts to revise the Constitution.

An extension of about a year is needed if large-scale disasters or terrorist attacks, including a potential megaquake in the Nankai Trough off the country's Pacific coast, occur, LDP lawmaker Yoshitaka Shindo said at the Commission on the Constitution in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of parliament.

Shindo also suggested that lawmakers' terms could be re-extended.

He proposed that a concrete idea for the clause be presented at the commission's next meeting.

Kaoru Nishida of the Japan Innovation Party, the LDP's coalition partner, stressed the need to present a schedule for constitutional revisions.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]