With the enactment of a referendum bill on Constitution revision Monday by the parliament, Japan made a noticeable step towards the amendment of its pacifist national charter.

It's widely believed that the 60-year-old Constitution has contributed significantly in bringing peace and prosperity to postwar Japan. Meanwhile, many hold the top law needs to be rewritten in that it failed to address major issues of the present.

The legal procedure for amending the top law, therefore, is the first step. Japan's Constitution states that any amendment is to be initiated by parliament through a concurring vote of two-thirds in both houses and then be presented to the people for endorsement by a majority vote in a referendum.

However, until Monday, there has been no legislation stipulating the specific rules for such a referendum.

Under the new law, Japanese citizens aged 18 or older are eligible to vote in a constitutional referendum. The law does not set a minimum voter turnout, under which the referendum would be nullified.

It is also required that the law is to be implemented three years after its enactment and no amendment draft on the Constitution can be submitted until its implementation. Therefore, actual referendum for Constitution revision would be at least three years away.

Following the enactment, constitutional screening committees will be set up in both the upper and lower houses when the next Diet session convenes after the upper house election in July.

Japan's current Constitution has not been revised since it came into effect in 1947. Shinzo Abe is the second prime minister who put amendment of Constitution on his political agenda, after his grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi's unsuccessful efforts in 1957.

Since inauguration, Abe has made it clear that revision of Constitution is of high priority for his administration. "We face the need to review the Constitution," he reiterated his determination in a statement issued on May 3, the Constitution Day.

"Japanese society has faced major changes that could not be imagined at the time of the enactment of the Constitution", he said. The premier has also indicated before that constitution amendment is to be a focal issue of the upper house election slated for July.

The current ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has also been a leading advocate for rewriting the Constitution, arguing that the Constitution bars Japan from exercising the right to collective self-defense and from acting as a "normal" country which can provide military assistance to its alley.

Though many in the political arena supported the amendment, parties differ in what to be amended. A focal point is the war- renouncing Article 9, which stipulates "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes, " and "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."

The LDP has presented in a constitutional draft in 2005 to have the Sele-Defense Forces (SDF) renamed as "Self-Defense Army" in the article. The LDP is for removing the second clause of the war- renouncing Article 9 to allow Japan to officially possess military forces for self-defense.

Its governing coalition partner the New Komeito party, however, opposes rewriting the two clauses of the Article 9 and only supports mentioning the SDF and its contribution in the Constitution.

The largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan says it is against the upgrade to "Self-Defense Army" but is in favor to add things about the right of self-defense. The Social Democratic Party and the Japanese Communist Party, are against any changes to Article 9.

Public surveys showed that over half of respondents think the supreme law should be amended. However, a majority of people expressed their concerns over any changes to the war-renouncing Article 9.

Source: Xinhua