The government drew up a bill Saturday designed to inflict tougher penalties on architects who produce substandard buildings and others who violate construction regulations.
The penalties would include imprisonment and disclosure of names of those stripped of their licenses.
To prevent architects and developers from falsifying structural-strength data as in the recent building scandal, the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry also plans to have third-party structural design architects verify data submitted in applications for construction authorizations.
The measures will be included in an interim report to be released Monday by a government panel and will be finalized in late February.
The government will submit bills to the Diet during the current session to raise the maximum penalty under the Building Standard Law from a 500,000 yen fine to three years in prison or a fine of 3 million yen.
The government also plans to revise legislation to penalize architects who fabricate construction blueprints and structural data reports by revoking their licenses as well as introducing prison terms of up to a year and fines.
Currently, government-designated firms and municipal authorities are in charge of checking construction plans submitted for approval, but most lack experts in structural design to check the data.