Money Talks But People are Voiceless

I have been angry at the slush fund cases of the LDP for these months.

According to the Political Fund Control Law, it is LEGAL for a legislator’s office to collect money through fundraising parties as long as tickets are bought by individuals, not industrial organizations or interest groups. However, the law doesn’t require the party organizer to make the public WHO buy the party tickets and WHETHER they attend, as long as they satisfy the following conditions: the max payment for tickets per person should not exceed 200,000 yen.

In fact, through these twisted procedures and a kind of a bypass, members of the Diet, even ministers, can collect money without disclosing ticket-buyers’ names publicly. It could happen that a special interest group pretends to be individuals and pays for the party tickets of a lawmaker who belongs to a ministry or a committee of relevance. We people don’t have any means to know about who and how many tickets are bought.

As long as the accountants correctly did the accounts, they wouldn’t be inspected by the prosecutors. But some of them have made it partially off the book. It has been clear so far that nearly fifty of them have done that and the total amount of money is estimated at 600 million yen. Most of the concerned legislators said that their accountants DID that while they didn’t know it, and the money that has been kept off the book would be correctly rewritten in the book.

Do you believe that most of the concerned legislators DIDN’T KNOW that? They just put their own responsibility onto their accountants or secretaries. Loopholes of the law give immunity to lawmakers. Having said that, a bad law is still a law. Fundamental amendment of the law is needed, I think.

Not only such an amendment but also a monitoring system is necessary: a digital database in which people can access, look at and trace shifting money that legislators’ offices have done for all the time he/she has been in a public position, including who paid to him/her and whom he/she paid for.

The Japanese government is so enthusiastic about controlling people using a digital system, but they deliberately avoid disclosing public records and legislators’ money and property.

Anyway, in my perspective, the scandal will end with the indictments of several participants: a few legislators who will be proven that they directed their secretaries or accountants to keep the gain from the party tickets off the book, and accountants who literally committed the same violation while their boss didn’t know that.

Cases in which politicians or bureaucrats are involved are investigated by the prosecutor's office. However, I wonder if the independence of the office is fully secured because the public prosecutors are still the bureaucrats under the Ministry of Justice. Accusing politicians of the leading party means to be offensive to their bosses.

I really regret that democracy doesn’t work in Japan and many people don’t care about that. Most people have gotten used to politicians’ corruption and evasion so much that they don’t even complain. Rather than that, they’ve become sardonic. Anyway, money talks too much but people are still voiceless.