Japan's opposition parties making last-ditch efforts against war bills

Lawmakers crowd around Yoshitada Konoike, chairman of the upper house special committee on security, as Masahisa Sato (R) of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party's fist lands on opposition Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Hiroyuki Konishi (top) during a vote at an upper house special committee session on security-related legislation at the parliament in Tokyo, Japan, September 17, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

TOKYO - Japan's five largest opposition parties on Friday filed a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet at the national Diet's lower house in their last-ditch efforts to delay a vote on a series of security bills possibly later the day in a plenary session of the upper house.

The opposition parties, which group the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Japan Innovation Party, Japan Communist Party, Social Democratic Party and People's Life Party, said that the security legislation violates the country's Constitution.

The motion against Abe's cabinet came after a censure motion against the prime minister filed by the DPJ earlier the day at the upper house.

The motions followed an upper house panel' approval of the government-backed legislation on Thursday and were in an effort to delay the planned vote at a plenary session of the upper house.

The opposition parties said that the new security bills violate the Japanese war-renouncing Constitution and the majority of the Japanese public are against the legislation, which, if enacted, will allow the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) to engage in armed conflicts overseas even if Japan is not attacked.

The Japanese pacifism supreme law bans the SDF from using force abroad and from exercising the right to collective self-defense.