Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Wednesday that a court order for dissolving a religious group under the religious corporation law can be sought in cases involving Civil Code breaches, contrary to his explanation the day before.

Kishida presented the revised interpretation of the law at a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament, amid public controversy over the religious group known as the Unification Church.

“If an act is deemed to be carried out in an organized, malicious and persistent manner and is found to be significantly harmful to public welfare and in violation of laws, a decision should be made on a case-by-case basis,” Kishida said in response to a question from Hiroyuki Konishi of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan.

At a meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, on Tuesday, Kishida explained that acts in violation of the Civil Code were not subject to possible dissolution orders.

The religious corporation law allows dissolution orders when religious groups commit acts that are clearly found to harm public welfare substantially, in violation of laws and regulations.

Explaining the reason for the change, Kishida told the Upper House committee Wednesday that the government reviewed its thinking based on the principle of rigorous applications of laws.

He also said that the government may begin procedures to seek a dissolution order before trials on religious groups’ criminal cases are finalized.

Regarding the right to ask religious groups questions granted to the government under the law, Kishida said that the government will make full efforts to decide what to ask if it exercises the right over the Unification Church.

The government will take account of opinions of experts when examining what to ask, Kishida said, adding that the government will consider disclosing minutes of meetings of the Religious Juridical Persons Council in which relevant issues will be discussed.

Kishida made the remarks on the questioning right in response to questions from the CDP’s Kiyomi Tsujimoto, who also grilled the government on the state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month.

The committee meeting was delayed by about 10 minutes for talks over a remark by Upper House steering committee chairman and LDP member Junichi Ishii lambasting the opposition bloc.

JIJI Press