Shinzo Abe’s rivals warn against political pardons to mark Japanese Emperor Naruhito’s enthronement

Such amnesties have previously been criticised in Japan as a method for governments to absolve allies and bureaucrats who broke the law

Opposition politician Yukihisa Fujita cited the example of Nobuhisa Sagawa, the former head of Japan’s tax agency who was a key figure in the Morimoto scandal

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Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Photo: AP

Published: 7:00am, 15 Oct 2019Updated: 7:08am, 15 Oct 2019

A senior opposition politician in Japan has warned the government against granting pardons to political allies to mark the upcoming enthronement of Emperor Naruhito, claiming such action would be an abuse of power.

The government reportedly has a list of 600,000 people found guilty of white-collar or relatively minor crimes who will have their criminal records expunged or sentences commuted to commemorate the new emperor’s enthronement on October 22.

The pardons would be the first since 1993, when 2.5 million people had their records revised to mark the wedding of then-crown prince Naruhito to Princess Masako. Similar amnesties have been issued on 11 occasions since the end of World War II, including 10 million pardons in 1989 when then-emperor Hirohito died.

Such amnesties have previously been criticised as a method for governments to absolve political allies convicted of offences linked to electoral fraud and bureaucrats who broke the law. The cabinet’s exclusive authority to decide who receives a pardon – with no independent oversight or public transparency – has also been criticised.

Yukihisa Fujita, leader of the Constitutional Democratic Party in the Upper House, warned Prime Minister Shinzo Abe against using the enthronement to excuse cases of wrongdoing on political grounds.

“I’m going to be extremely unhappy if that happens,” Fujita said. “The government should only be granting pardons in cases that are clearly not politically motivated and they should not be covering up pardons that are issued. And they definitely should not be doing it in the name of the emperor.”

Fujita cited the example of Nobuhisa Sagawa, the former head of the National Tax Agency and a key figure in the so-called Moritomo scandal, which last year threatened to undermine Abe’s leadership.

It was alleged Abe and his wife, Akie, used their influence to help the deeply conservative educational group Moritomo Gakuen purchase land in Osaka for a fraction of its 956 million yen (US$8.9 million) market value.