Asian Topics on Asia for Educators || The Government of Modern Japan: The Japanese Diet (Parliament)

THE GOVERNMENT OF MODERN JAPAN:
THE JAPANESE DIET (PARLIAMENT)
The Parliament after the Second World War

Gerald L. Curtis :: Now the parliament that exists in Japan today, the so-called "Diet," was created anew after the Second World War as a result of the adoption of a new constitution. And, unlike the pre-war system, the new constitution is unambiguous in making the Diet the supreme organ of state power.

Under the pre-war system, sovereignty rested not with the people, as it does under the post-war system, but with the Emperor. And so the Diet had responsibilities, had certain functions in the political system, but it did not have real power. Real power rested, theoretically, with the Emperor.

Now, under the post-war system, because the Diet is defined as the supreme organ of state, of state power, it is theoretically the fountainhead of all political power in Japan. So anything, all laws, have to be adopted by the parliament, by the Diet.

So in theory the Diet has a central role to play in Japanese politics. In fact, the Diet has not performed the roles that the constitution defines for it. It is not the supreme organ of real power in Japan because the institutions within the Diet, within the Japanese parliament, that are so powerful in other countries are not powerful there.

For example, Japanese parliament has committees, just as we have in the United States Congress. But in the U.S. Congress, committees are very important. It's where legislation is drafted and then that legislation, if it’s adopted by the committee, goes to the full House or the full Senate for a vote. And if it’s adopted by the Senate and the House, it then becomes a law.

But in Japan, the committees do not draft legislation, or draft very little legislation. Most legislation in Japan is drafted by the bureaucracy and then submitted to the parliament by the cabinet. And the committees rarely even amend these bills, but simply vote them up or vote them down, so that the center of policy-making in modern Japan tends to take place not in the Diet, but in the bureaucracy.