Now that the state budget for fiscal 2015 has been passed into law, the Diet has entered a crucial phase as it is required to deal with numerous important issues. To that end, the ruling coalition comprised of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito is considering extending the session that is scheduled to end on June 24 to early August.

During the latter half of the session, the legislature is supposed to deal with such important issues as security bills and historical perceptions on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. Other key issues include the stiffening of regulations on political funding following revelations of a series of money scandals involving politicians and rectification of the widening disparity in the value of votes between the most densely and sparsely populated constituencies in the Diet.

Deliberations at the House of Councillors Budget Committee in the first half of the session lacked a sense of tension as compared with those at the House of Representatives, where former Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Koya Nishikawa was grilled over his involvement in a political funding scandal, leading to his resignation.

During the first half of the session, there were problems irrelevant to policy issues. The opposition Japan Innovation Party (JIP) expelled lower house member Sayuri Uenishi for being absent from the Diet allegedly without a proper reason, and the LDP's Satsuki Katayama, who chairs the upper house panel on diplomacy and defense, came under fire for being late in attending sessions. Key policy issues appeared as if they were buried under these problems.

After the state budget, which is a lifeline for the government, is approved, ruling party members usually feel they are through with the hardest part of the regular session. However, this is not the case with the current session.

The ruling coalition is set to resume consultations on security legislation, including bills to open the way for Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense, and the executive branch of the government is expected to submit relevant bills to the Diet in mid-May. The government will also decide shortly on an "energy mix" -- the ratio of power sources including nuclear and renewable energy. Moves to draft a statement that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will announce on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in August will gain momentum. The statement will be issued also against the backdrop of the 50th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea in June.

Revisions to the Worker Dispatching Act to lift the upper limit on the period of dispatching workers and a bill to promote the construction of so-called "integrated resorts" such as casinos, which some legislators are aiming to pass into law during the ongoing session, are key issues relating to the government's growth strategy.

There are also crucial issues that must be addressed to produce tangible results. The Diet has not taken effective measures to prevent political funding irregularities. It is hardly understandable that the legislature has failed to even amend legislation to beef up regulations on political donations from companies that have received government subsidies.

Unless the Diet revises the upper house electoral system to reduce the vote disparity to permissible levels during the ongoing session, it will be too late for the summer 2016 election. The responsibility of the LDP that has neglected to coordinate views on the issue is particularly serious.

Opposition parties' abilities to construct a solid argument over key policy issues are also being tested. The current Diet session lacks heated debate partly because the largest opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has not clarified its stance toward security legislation and cannot spark in-depth discussions. It is indispensable for the Diet to hold open and thorough talks on security legislation so that members of the general public can sufficiently understand the complicated bills that cover a wide scope of fields. To that end, the DPJ should determine its position on the legislation.