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TOKYO, Dec. 10-- Japan's national Diet concluded a 48-day extraordinary session on Monday with 13 bills passed, including a controversial immigration legislation to allow for more foreign workers, while discussions about the first-ever amendment of Japan's pacifist Constitution advocated by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were delayed. "There is no change in my hope to see a new Constitution take effect in 2020," Abe told a press conference Monday at the conclusion of the Diet session in which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) failed to present its amendment proposals. Abe, who is also president of the LDP, proposed in May 2017 to have the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution revised to specifically mention Japan's Self-Defense Forces (SDF). "By making explicit the status of the SDF in the Constitution during our generation's lifetime, we should leave no room for contending that the SDF may be unconstitutional," the prime minister said then, adding that he wants to see the new supreme law take effect by 2020. Abe had called for the LDP to present its constitutional amendment proposals to the parliament during the extraordinary Diet session that started in late October for further discussions. However, a stand-off between the ruling and opposition parties over a new immigration bill made it difficult for the ruling party to push forward the sensitive discussions over amending the Constitution. | 
