GOVERNMENT
Japan is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government. There is universal adult suffrage with a secret ballot for all elective offices. Sovereignty, previously embodied in the emperor, is vested in the Japanese people, and the Emperor is defined as the symbol of the state.
Japan's Government is a parliamentary democracy, with a House of Representatives and a House of Councillors. Executive power is vested in a cabinet composed of a prime minister and ministers of state, all of whom must be civilians. The prime minister must be a member of the Diet and is designated by his colleagues. The prime minister has the power to appoint and remove ministers, a majority of whom must be Diet members. The judiciary is independent.
The seven major political parties represented in the National Diet are the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the Social Democratic Party (SDP), the People’s New Party (PNP), the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the New Clean Government Party (Komeito), the Japan Communist Party (JCP), and Your Party (YP).
Japan's judicial system, drawn from customary law, civil law, and Anglo-American common law, consists of several levels of courts, with the Supreme Court as the final judicial authority. The Japanese constitution includes a bill of rights similar to the U.S. Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has the right of judicial review. Japanese courts do not use a jury system, and there are no administrative courts or claims courts. Because of the judicial system's basis, court decisions are made in accordance with legal statutes. Only Supreme Court decisions have any direct effect on later interpretation of the law.
Japan
does not have a federal system, and its 47 prefectures are not
sovereign entities in the sense that U.S. states are. Most depend
on the central government for subsidies. Governors of prefectures,
mayors of municipalities, and prefectural and municipal assembly
members are popularly elected to 4-year terms.
Recent
Political Developments
The post-World War II years saw tremendous economic growth in Japan, with the political system dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). That total domination lasted until the Diet lower house elections in July 1993, in which the LDP failed for the first time to win a majority. The LDP returned to power in 1994, with majorities in both houses of the Diet. In elections in July 2007, the LDP lost its majority in the upper house. The DPJ followed up on this advance with a landslide victory in the lower house elections of August 2009, giving the DPJ a majority in the more powerful lower house and a leading coalition in the upper house, overturning the post-World War II political order.
Domestically, the DPJ has signaled that it wishes to overturn the system of policy-making established under the LDP whereby the bureaucracy took the lead in policy formation. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama pledged during the campaign to place more politicians at the heads of ministries to shift power away from the bureaucrats. In addition, the DPJ has proposed creating the National Strategy Bureau, to be comprised of public and private sector officials, envisioned by the DPJ as becoming the government’s key policy-making and budgetary body.
Principal
Government Officials
Head of State--Emperor Akihito
Prime Minister (Head of Government)--Yukio Hatoyama
Minister of Foreign Affairs--Katsuya Okada
Ambassador to the United States--Ichiro Fujisaki
Permanent Representative to the UN--Yukio Takasu
Japan
maintains an embassy
in the United States at 2520 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington,
DC 20008 (tel: 202-238-6700; fax: 202-328-2187). .
Type: Constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government.
Constitution: May 3, 1947.
Branches: Executive--prime minister (head of government). Legislative--bicameral Diet (House of Representatives and House of Councillors). Judicial--civil law system based on the model of Roman law.
Administrative subdivisions: 47 prefectures.
Political parties: Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Social Democratic Party (SDP), People’s New Party (PNP), Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), New Clean Government Party (Komeito), Japan Communist Party (JCP).
Suffrage: Universal at 20.
