Banning Political Donations Could Violate Constitution: Ishiba

Tokyo, Dec. 10 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Tuesday that an opposition-proposed ban on donations from companies and other organizations could violate Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression.

"Companies also have freedom of expression," Ishiba told a House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting, adding that it does not matter whether the donor is an individual or a legal entity.

The prime minister again denied that political parties agreed to abolish corporate donations when the political party subsidy system was established in 1994. "The government at that time did not have a policy of banning (such donations)," he said. "It was a common understanding among all lawmakers then."

Akira Nagatsuma, acting head of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, claimed that Yohei Kono, then president of the Liberal Democratic Party, had a plan to ban corporate donations five years after the subsidy system was introduced.

Ishiba avoided a clear response to the claim, saying, "It is of course possible for companies to use donations to express their will."

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]