Constitutional revision looms as a major political issue in Japan. It was a key agenda item at the January conventions of the two largest political parties, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan. The LDP decided to draw up a revision plan in 2005, the 50th anniversary of the party's founding, while the DPJ president, Naoto Kan, said his party will work out its own proposal by 2006, the 60th anniversary of the promulgation of the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the Diet's Constitutional Research Council is expected to submit a final report to the speaker of the Lower House and the president of the Upper House, respectively, sometime between late this year and early next.
The dispatch of Self-Defense Force troops to Iraq, now a subject of heated debate in the Diet, has turned a spotlight on the issue of constitutional revision. At the root of the controversy is Article 9 of the Constitution and whether Japan can exercise the right to collective self-defense. The government's constitutional interpretation is that the nation has the right but cannot exercise it.