Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka threw the Lower House Committee on Foreign Affairs into turmoil Friday after requesting that scheduled questions by Muneo Suzuki, a rival politician within her Liberal Democratic Party, be limited.
In a rare move, the committee chairman, Ryuichi Doi, criticized Tanaka at the outset of the meeting, saying her request was "an intervention in the right of the legislature by the administration."
Her actions also prompted her to be summoned later in the day by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, who reprimanded the foreign minister, saying that such an attempt to restrict Diet questions was undesirable from the viewpoint of the separation of the three powers as stipulated in the Constitution and to refrain from repeating it.