Two legal experts on Friday argued that the government's security bills are constitutional, with one saying the number of scholars supporting the legislation or not is irrelevant to its constitutionality.
The bills are "clearly within the allowable range" of the war-renouncing Constitution because they would only allow Japan to use the right of collective self-defense "to a limited extent," said Osamu Nishi, professor emeritus at Komazawa University.
The government's push to enact the security legislation follows its reinterpretation of the Constitution's Article 9, which bans the use of force as a means of settling international disputes. Previous governments interpreted the provision as banning the nation from exercising the right to collective self-defense.