Executive Power and Popular
Sovereignty
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Constitution
Parliamentary System
Head of the Majority Party
House of Representative
This may Influence:
 Legislative
 Judicative
The Designation of the Prime
Minister
 Diet Resolution
 The Two Houses Designation
 Runoff
 LDP’s Reign
Formation of The Cabinet
 Prime Minister forms the Cabinet
 Article 2 of Cabinet Law: PM can appoint 20 Ministers
 Article 68: Majority of Ministers must be Diet
members
 Article 66: All ministers, including PM, must be
civilians
 Certain customs dictation
Formation of The Cabinet
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Distribution of power within the ruling party
Katayama Tetsu (Socialist PM, 1947): Failed
Ishibashi Tanzan (LDP PM, 1956): Succeed
Appoint the party’s top officers
Together with chairman of LDP Assembly of the House of
Councilors assist PM in forming cabinet lineup
 Three LDP officers chosen from each three largest
factions.
 Each faction chooses its candidates for cabinet post
Cabinet Responsibility
The concept of Cabinet’s
Collective Responsibility
Cabinet is responsible to
the Diet
Under the present
Constitution
The Diet supersedes
the Cabinet in many
aspects:
-Enactment of laws
-Budget decisionsTreaties approval
Under the Meiji Constitution
State ministers’
individual
responsibility as
advisers to the
emperor
Cabinet ministers have the right and
obligation to report to the Diet on national
and international affairs as well as to attend
Diet sessions
Also, members of cabinet can be forced to
resign by the House of Representatives
Cabinet solidarity and the powers of
prime minister
 The role of prime minister in the cabinet
 Prime Minister other’s power:
 Represents the cabinet in submitting bills
 Minister crucial countersigned
 Prime Minister > Minister previlaged
 The rights of Minister
Cabinet Authority
 Function:
 Manage Foreign Affairs
 Conclude treaties (with
approval of the Diet)
 Administer civil service
 Prepare the budget and
present it to the Diet
 Administer the law :
conduct affairs of state
 Granting of general
amnesty, special amnesty,
commutation of
punishment, reprieve and
restoration of rights
 Powers
 Right to submit amendments to the
Constitution
 Expenditure of a reserve fund
 Convocation of the House of
Councillors in emergency situation
 Convocation of extraordinary
sessions of the Diet
 Designation of the Chief Justice
Supreme Court
 Submission of final accounts and
presentation of reports to the Diet
and the people of on the state of
national finances
 Appointment of the justices of the
Supreme Court and the judges of
inferior courts
 Advice &approval for all acts of the
emperor in matters of state
Cabinet Meetings
 The agenda:
1. General business concerning important matters of
national administration
2. Promulgation of laws or treaties
3. Bills to be submitted to the Diet
4. Cabinet orders
5. Personnel
6. Other matters
Cabinet Meetings
 Rules of the seating:
 The prime minister sits between the chief cabinet
secretary (left) and the minister of justice (right).
 The heads of other state ministers follow on the left and
right.
 Other state ministers follow in like manner according to
the alphabetical order of their names.
 The director general of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau
and two deputy chief cabinet secretaries sit at a
separate table to the rear.
Cabinet Meetings
 The authorities
 Prime minister can call extraordinary meetings as
necessary
 Cabinet Secretariat organizes and discusses the agenda
in advance through meetings with the administrative
vice-ministers of the various ministries and agencies
Cabinet Organization and Coordination
(highest administrative body)
 The Cabinet Secretariat – manage the general
internal administrative affairs
 The agenda of cabinet meetings:
 Coordinates the activities and statements of the various
ministries and agencies
 Completes much of the groundwork involved in the
implementation of major government policies
 The Cabinet Legislation Bureau – providing an
assistance relating to the preparation and passage of
bills and other legislative matters
The Ministries and Agencies
the head of each ministry is appointed by the prime minister
 The primary organs, as of June 1988 are Prime Minister’s
Office and 12 ministries:
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Justice
Foreign Affairs
Finance
Education
Health and Welfare
Agriculture
Forestry and Fisheries
International Trade and Industry
Transport
Posts and Telecommunication
Labor
Construction
Home Affairs
Development of the bureaucracy
 History of Japanese bureaucracy dates back to the Meiji era
 In July 1887 a civil service examination was instituted
 The government adopted the practice of according preferential
treatment to graduates of imperial university=Tokyo University
 In March 1889 the second cabinet of Yamada Aritomo issued
new ordinances regarding the status and disciplining of public
servants
 The influence of those bureaucrats grew rapidly in the early part
of the twentieth century, and in time the bureaucracy along with
the military, and the clan-dominated Meiji oligarchy
 The system for fostering, appointing, and compensating civil
servants that developed in the Meiji and Taisho eras succeeded
in filling the bureaucracy with highly talented diligent, and
energetic personnel
The bureaucracy today
Bureau
racy
Private
Company
 Each ministry and each designated
external organ of the Prime Minister’s
Office is headed by a minister of state
 Currently employs about 830,000
 18,000 career bureaucrats are nucleus consists of a corps,
who have passed the highly competitive Principal senior
A-Class Entrance Examination
 After retirement top-ranking bureaucrats regularly
receive prestigious positions in public or private
corporations in an arrangement termed amakudari