Overview
- At the first lower house constitutional review meeting of the session, the Liberal Democratic Party and Nippon Ishin pressed to start writing text for a clause that would expand government powers in large disasters.
- Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi underscored a push for an early proposal and installed close ally Keiji Furuya to chair the lower house panel.
- The upper house agreed to open its constitutional review with hearings on election malapportionment, as LDP members seek to add emergency response to the agenda and opposition figures resist a new drafting committee.
- The ruling camp controls about three quarters of lower house seats but lacks the two‑thirds needed in the upper house, and any amendment must clear both chambers before a national referendum.
- Separately, the government delayed submitting a bill to revise criminal retrial rules, with Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi citing the Law Council’s recommendations and weighing limits on prosecutors’ appeals after pushback inside the LDP.