Using iPads and other digital devices during Diet sessions is banned under current rules as well as custom, but this may change after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the devices may invigorate deliberations.
Abe made the remark at an Upper House audit committee meeting Monday when he was questioned about Ichiro Komatsu, the top bureaucrat at the Cabinet Legislation Bureau.
On March 25, Komatsu responded to a question from an opposition lawmaker after reading an email on a staffer's cellphone during an Upper House foreign affairs and defense committee session because he did not have an answer prepared.
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