The Abe Cabinet on Thursday appointed Ambassador to France Ichiro Komatsu as the new head of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's intention is clear: to pave the way for changing the government's traditional interpretation of the Constitution's Article 9. Under this interpretation, Japan cannot exercise the right to collective self-defense — the right to use military power to repel attacks on a country that has close ties with Japan even if Japan is not attacked.
Mr. Komatsu is in favor of changing the current interpretation so that Japan can exercise the right, and Mr. Abe plans to submit a bill to the Diet to accomplish this. He apparently hopes that the appointment of Mr. Komatsu will be helpful in getting the Cabinet Legislation Bureau's endorsement for this move, which would have the same effect of changing Article 9.
Although Mr. Abe appears to want to exercise the right to collective self-defense in limited cases, his approach skirts the normal procedure to revise the Constitution. It undermines the principles of constitution-based parliamentary democracy.