EDITORIAL: Ozawa's legal problems

A prosecution inquest committee on Tuesday decided that Ichiro Ozawa, secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Japan, "merits indictment" over his alleged violation of the Political Fund Control Law.

Consisting of randomly selected members of the public, the committee insisted that an indictment be brought against Ozawa "in order to clarify all the facts and his accountability in a court of law."

"This is exactly what decent, law-abiding citizens desire," the committee said.

Until the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office finishes reinvestigating the case and the inquest panel rules again, if the prosecutors decide not to indict, we will not know if Ozawa will be charged.

Now is not the time to speculate.

However, the panel listed the same suspicions many people have held since the scandal broke and the questionable flow of money and other irregularities came to light. Based on these suspicions, the panel concluded there is strong reason to presume that Ozawa conspired with his aides and others to falsify his political fund reports.

By itself, the panel's report lacks precision in its assessment of specific evidence and falls well short of the strict fact-finding standard to which the Tokyo prosecutors and the court have always adhered.

But echoing the sentiment of the public at large, the panel commented: "So long as the politician insists on having delegated the task to his aide, does the politician never have to be held accountable? Is this fair?"

In fact, the same sentiment was expressed Monday by another prosecution inquest committee that examined Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's money scandal.

The cause of all this public frustration and despair is none other than Ozawa himself. After bitterly criticizing the Tokyo prosecutors, Ozawa readily accepted the results of their investigation as "fair and just" when they dropped their case against him.

The prosecutors could not indict him because of insufficient incriminating evidence, but Ozawa treated the prosecutors' decision as proof positive of his innocence. And he has rejected every demand that he explain himself in the Diet.

Ozawa's high-handed attitude and blatant refusal to speak directly to the people have fanned their anger and resentment. Combined with policy mismanagement by the administration of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, support for the Hatoyama Cabinet and the Democratic Party of Japan continues to sink. This is not a situation that the people will forget over time.

On the contrary, the people's mistrust is only deepening because the DPJ has proved incapable of taking timely action and cleaning up its own mess.

There is a mountain of issues the party must address if it is to regain credibility. Banning corporate and group donations is certainly one, but that's only a start.

With politicians having numerous "purses" such as their fund management organizations and local party chapters to render the movement of funds hard to track, what can be done to bring transparency to the flow of funds? How should the relationship between politicians and their aides be redefined? And to what extent should politicians be held accountable for the actions of their aides? These were the very issues raised by the two inquest panels.

But the DPJ has continued to avoid discussing these issues. The people's anger has reached a critical point, threatening to erode the party's foundations.

The establishment of a two-party system which offered the possibility of regime change was Ozawa's long-held dream. But as soon as the system was finally in place, voters turned their backs on the two parties. The system's disintegration has begun.

Ozawa's reaction to the prosecution inquest committee's decision was to state his intention to remain the party's secretary-general. But he needs to look at the larger picture.

He must explain himself in the Diet as soon as possible. If he cannot, he should resign as party secretary-general and leave party management to someone else. There is no more time to waste.

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 28