Lawyers to challenge constitutionality of Japan's new security laws in courts nationwide

Japan's newly-enacted security laws will be challenged as being unconstitutional by a contingency of legal experts who will file lawsuits with district courts across the country, a spokesperson for the group said Monday.

Some 300 lawyers support the collective drive to legally contest the security laws, that were forced through both houses of parliament by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling bloc against the public's will and without satisfactory debate with opposition parties.

The bills' forced passage into law came following Abe and his Cabinet opting to unilaterally reinterpret, or circumnavigate the key Article 9 of Japan's Constitution that forbids the nation from maintaining a military or using force as a means of settling an international dispute.

The legislation has been nationally protested at huge demonstrations around the country, and notable scholars including a former chief justice of Japan's Supreme Court have lambasted the legislation as being in direct violation of Japan's pacifist supreme law.

The first of the lawsuits may be filed as early as next March, the group said, around the same time Abe's war legislation comes into effect, with the nature of the suits geared towards prohibiting the deployment of Japanese troops overseas, based on one tenet in the suits claiming the legislation will create a fear of "becoming a terrorism target or getting involved in a war on a daily basis and violate their right to live peacefully," as quoted by local media.

Damages for psychological distress caused by the war legislation will also be sought in separate lawsuits, the group also said Monday.

The group's co-head, Kazuhiro Terai, was quoted as saying that many people have asked him on numerous occasions "What is the judiciary doing against reckless acts that run counter to the Constitution?"

"There are many challenges over the lawsuits but unreasonable acts by the Cabinet and the Diet are not permissible under the Constitution," Terai said at a press briefing in Tokyo, referring specifically to the Cabinet's reinterpretation of the Constitution to lift the country's ban on collective self-defense and Abe railroading the war bills through parliament.