No. 1282 Act on Review and Regulation of the Use of Important Lands
The law to review and regulate the use of real estate surrounding important facilities and on remote territorial islands took effect on September 20, 2022, and the government has started to designate such areas. It practically means to survey inhabitants in the vicinity of the ‘important facilities’, including military bases, with an objective to exclude those who are against the nation’s policy. The law will regulate activities of free expression.
LAW IS BASED ON STATE’S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY
The act constitutes part of the war legislation
Mr. Handa Shigeru, a journalist, an expert on national defense affairs, calls a series of laws ‘four laws on preparing for wars’; they are the Law to Protect Specific Secrets, the National Security Related Acts (the so-called War Legislation), Act on Conspiracy and the Law to Review and Regulate the Use of Real Estate Surrounding Important Lands.
The above-said law on the land use covers areas in the vicinity of 1 km in radius from the ‘important facilities’ belonging to the Self Defense Forces (SDF) and the Coast Guard of Japan and the US military, and the nuclear power plants as well as remote islands which border with foreign countries. These zones will be ‘designated to be monitored’. And then the government authorities will check (1) how the real estate, or lands and facilities, in these areas are used, (2) they will advise, as an order, suspending the uses of real estate, if ‘the functions’ of the important facilities and the islands may be hampered or may be detrimental by certain activities. The order will be given, accompanying penalty (of shorter than two years of incarceration or fines less than 2 million yen) to be imposed on the relevant citizens and the groups, and (3) an obligation is levied on sales and purchases of real estate in the ‘areas to be specially monitored’ inside the ‘areas to be monitored’, that is to inform of such deals compulsorily in advance. A penalty clause (shorter than six months of imprisonment or fines less than one million yen) is added.
The Law violates principle of criminal act
The law will certainly cover citizens’ activities, too; in the Okinawa and Kanagawa Prefectures, where residents have been suffering from noises of aircraft and the ultra-low altitude flights of the US military, and crimes committed by US soldiers. Local people have organized groups to watch the performance, waging protest activities.
In the Sakishima Islands, the Amami Islands and the Tanegashima Island, where new bases for the SDF and training grounds of the US military are planned to be built, the law will work in a similar way.
Thus, this law violates Article 21 of the Constitution, which provides assurance of freedom of expression: the act aims to limit personal rights, enhance surveillance of residents, and regulate and suppress civic activities against military bases and nuclear power plants and their monitoring efforts. It is an evil law.
The ‘basic guidelines’ compiled by the government illustrate seven cases as acts categorized to be advised or ordered to remove, including setting up a building object that may hinder taking-off and landing of aircraft and disturb radar operation. The law adds to say other objects than the specified ones may ‘be identified’ as such building objects, which is to be judged independently and concretely.
That is to say that items in question are kept ambiguous, without being described concretely by the law, and the law will be implemented repeatedly in an arbitrary manner. The law violates the Constitution as it does not meet the basic criteria of the criminal act in terms of the imprecise requirements on penalty.
Lacking due process of legislation in the parliament
Did the Diet take the due procedures for enactment? No.
The ‘proposal’ made by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is regarded to be the basis of this law; local assembly members and the LDP party members asked about a fact that foreign capitals had purchased areas adjacent to the SDF bases. And later, the Ministry of Defense announced that ‘no inconvenience had been found’ after their investigation.
No due legislative processes were taken, but the Suga administration forcibly implemented it, which was followed by the succeeding Kishida government to be completed fully. The law works along the National Security Strategy, which represents the fundamental policy of the government decided in the meeting of the Cabinet members in 2013 by the then-Abe government to enact a number of war preparation laws.
戦争法制の一環
防衛ジャーナリストの半田滋さんは、特定秘密保護法、安全保障関連法（戦争法）、共謀罪法、重要土地規制法を「戦争４法」と言う。
法律は自衛隊や米軍、海上保安庁、原発など「重要施設」の周囲１㎞内や、国境離島等の区域を「注視区域」に指定、①区域内の土地及び建物の利用実態を調査②施設や離島の「機能」を阻害する行為に供し、供する恐れがあるときは利用中止などを勧告、罰則付き（２年以下の懲役もしくは２００万円以下の罰金）で命令③「注視区域」の「特別注視区域」では、土地等の売買などの事前届出を罰則付き（６月以下の懲役又は１００万円以下の罰金）で義務づけるなどが柱。
刑法原則に違反
米軍機の騒音や超低空飛行、米兵の犯罪などに苦しめられている沖縄県や神奈川県など基地集中地の市民が行ってきた監視や抗議も規制対象と想定される。
自衛隊基地や米軍訓練場が新たに造られ、造られようとしている沖縄の先島諸島や奄美、種子島でも同じ状況になる。
このように、私権制限・住民監視を強め、軍事基地や原発反対・監視活動の規制・弾圧を目論んでおり、表現の自由を保障した憲法21条に違反する悪法だ。
勧告・命令の対象となる行為について政府の「基本方針」は、航空機の離着陸やレーダー運用を妨げる工作物の設置など７類型を例示。例示以外にも「対象となることはある」とし、個別具体的に判断するとしている。
つまり、何が対象か明確でないまま次々と拡大、恣意的な運用の恐れがある。刑罰の要件規定が不明確で、刑事法の基本原則を満たさない、違憲の法律だ。
立法事実もなく
立法事実はあるのか。基になった自民党「提言」の背景には、自衛隊基地周辺の土地を外国資本が買収したことを問題視した自治体議員や自民党議員らの働きかけがあった。だが、防衛省の調査で、「支障は確認されていない」ことが明らかになっている。
立法事実はなかったにもかかわらず、菅政権が強行し、岸田内閣が全面施行した。そして、安倍内閣が２０１３年に閣議決定し、数々の戦争法制を強行してきた基本政策「国家安全保障戦略」が基になっているのだ。
英訳版 ↓
No. 1282 Act on Review and Regulation of the Use of Important Lands
The law to review and regulate the use of real estate surrounding important facilities and on remote territorial islands took effect on September 20, 2022, and the government has started to designate such areas. It practically means to survey inhabitants in the vicinity of the ‘important facilities’, including military bases, with an objective to exclude those who are against the nation’s policy. The law will regulate activities of free expression.
LAW IS BASED ON STATE’S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY
The act constitutes part of the war legislation
Mr. Handa Shigeru, a journalist, an expert on national defense affairs, calls a series of laws ‘four laws on preparing for wars’; they are the Law to Protect Specific Secrets, the National Security Related Acts (the so-called War Legislation), Act on Conspiracy and the Law to Review and Regulate the Use of Real Estate Surrounding Important Lands.
The above-said law on the land use covers areas in the vicinity of 1 km in radius from the ‘important facilities’ belonging to the Self Defense Forces (SDF) and the Coast Guard of Japan and the US military, and the nuclear power plants as well as remote islands which border with foreign countries. These zones will be ‘designated to be monitored’. And then the government authorities will check (1) how the real estate, or lands and facilities, in these areas are used, (2) they will advise, as an order, suspending the uses of real estate, if ‘the functions’ of the important facilities and the islands may be hampered or may be detrimental by certain activities. The order will be given, accompanying penalty (of shorter than two years of incarceration or fines less than 2 million yen) to be imposed on the relevant citizens and the groups, and (3) an obligation is levied on sales and purchases of real estate in the ‘areas to be specially monitored’ inside the ‘areas to be monitored’, that is to inform of such deals compulsorily in advance. A penalty clause (shorter than six months of imprisonment or fines less than one million yen) is added.
The Law violates principle of criminal act
The law will certainly cover citizens’ activities, too; in the Okinawa and Kanagawa Prefectures, where residents have been suffering from noises of aircraft and the ultra-low altitude flights of the US military, and crimes committed by US soldiers. Local people have organized groups to watch the performance, waging protest activities.
In the Sakishima Islands, the Amami Islands and the Tanegashima Island, where new bases for the SDF and training grounds of the US military are planned to be built, the law will work in a similar way.
Thus, this law violates Article 21 of the Constitution, which provides assurance of freedom of expression: the act aims to limit personal rights, enhance surveillance of residents, and regulate and suppress civic activities against military bases and nuclear power plants and their monitoring efforts. It is an evil law.
The ‘basic guidelines’ compiled by the government illustrate seven cases as acts categorized to be advised or ordered to remove, including setting up a building object that may hinder taking-off and landing of aircraft and disturb radar operation. The law adds to say other objects than the specified ones may ‘be identified’ as such building objects, which is to be judged independently and concretely.
That is to say that items in question are kept ambiguous, without being described concretely by the law, and the law will be implemented repeatedly in an arbitrary manner. The law violates the Constitution as it does not meet the basic criteria of the criminal act in terms of the imprecise requirements on penalty.
Lacking due process of legislation in the parliament
Did the Diet take the due procedures for enactment? No.
The ‘proposal’ made by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is regarded to be the basis of this law; local assembly members and the LDP party members asked about a fact that foreign capitals had purchased areas adjacent to the SDF bases. And later, the Ministry of Defense announced that ‘no inconvenience had been found’ after their investigation.
No due legislative processes were taken, but the Suga administration forcibly implemented it, which was followed by the succeeding Kishida government to be completed fully. The law works along the National Security Strategy, which represents the fundamental policy of the government decided in the meeting of the Cabinet members in 2013 by the then-Abe government to enact a number of war preparation laws.
November 9, 2022