the national diet

8/10/2019 The National Diet

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The National DietParliament of Japan

- Kokkai -

Alistar Andreea

Azamfirei Andreea Florentina


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Kokkai

The NationalDiet( Kokkai) is Japan's bicameral legislature. It is composed ofa lower house, called the House ofRepresentatives, and an upper house,called the House of Councillors. Bothhouses of the Diet are directly elected

under a parallel voting system. In additionto passing laws, the Diet is formallyresponsible for selecting the Prime

Minister.


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The Diet was first convened as theImperial Diet in 1889 as a result of

adopting the Meiji constitution. The Diettook its current form in 1947 upon theadoption of the postwar constitution and

is considered by the Constitution to be thehighest organ of state power. The NationalDiet Building is located

in Nagatach,Chiyoda, Tokyo.


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Composition

The houses of the diet are elected under a parallelvoting system. This means that the seats to befilled in any given election are divided into two

groups, each elected by a different method; themain difference between the houses is in the sizesof the two groups and how they are elected.Voters are also asked to cast two votes: one for an

individual candidate in a constituency, and onefor a party list. Any national of Japan at leasttwenty years of age (the age of majority in Japan)may vote in these elections


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Japan's parallel voting system is not to beconfused with the Additional Member

System used in many other nations. House of Representatives: Of 480 members,

300 are elected from single seat constituenciesunder the Single Member Plurality ("First-past-the-post") system, and 180 are elected fromeleven separate electoral blocs under the partylist system of proportional representation (PR).

House of Councillors: Of 242 members, 146 areelected from 47 prefectural constituencies bymeans of the Single Non-Transferable Vote. Theremaining 96 are elected by open list PR from a

single national list.


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The Constitution of Japan does not specifythe number of members of each house of

the Diet, the voting system, or thenecessary qualifications of those who mayvote or be returned in parliamentary

elections, thus allowing all of these thingsto be determined by law. However it doesguarantee universal adult suffrage and asecret ballot. It also insists that theelectoral law must not discriminate interms of "race, creed, sex, social status,family origin, education, property or

income".


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Generally, the election of Diet members is controlled by statutespassed by the Diet. Because the Liberal Democratic Party hascontrolled Japan for most of its postwar history, and gains much ofits support from rural areas, rural areas generally have morerepresentation in the Diet than do urban areas.The Supreme Courtof Japan began exercising judicial review of apportionment lawsfollowing the Kurokawadecision of 1976, invalidating an election inwhich one district in Hygo Prefecturereceived five times the

representation of another district in Osaka Prefecture. The Supreme Court has since indicated that the highest electoral

imbalance permissible under Japanese law is 3:1, and that anygreater imbalance between any two districts is a violation of Article14 of the Constitution. In recent elections the malapportionement

ratio amounted to 4.8 in the House of Councillors (census 2005:saka/Tottori;election 2007: Kanagawa/Tottori) and 2.3 in the Houseof Representatives (election 2009: Chiba 4/Kchi 3


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Candidates for the lower housemust be 25 years old or older and 30 years orolder for the upper house. All candidates must

be Japanese nationals. Under Article 49 ofJapan's constitution, Diet members are paidabout 1.3 million a month in salary. Eachlawmaker is entitled to employ three secretaries

with taxpayer funds, free train tickets, and fourround-trip airplane tickets a month to enablethem to travel back and forth to their homedistricts


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Powers

Article 41 of the Constitution describes the National Diet as "the highestorgan of state power" and "the sole law-making organ of the State". Thisstatement is in forceful contrast to the Meiji Constitution, which describedthe Emperor as the one who exercised legislative power with the consent ofthe Diet. The Diet's responsibilities include not only the making of laws but

also the approval of the annual national budget that the governmentsubmits and the ratification of treaties. It can also initiate draftconstitutional amendments, which, if approved, must be presented to thepeople in a referendum. The Diet may conduct "investigations in relation togovernment" (Article 62). The prime minister must be designated by Dietresolution, establishing the principle of legislative supremacy over

executive government agencies (Article 67). The government can also bedissolved by the Diet if it passes a motion of no confidence introduced byfifty members of the House of Representatives. Government officials,including the prime minister and cabinet members, are required to appearbefore Diet investigative committees and answer inquiries. The Diet alsohas the power to impeach judges convicted of criminal or irregular

conduct.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Diethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Diet


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In most circumstances, in order to become law a bill must be firstpassed by both houses of the Diet and then promulgated bythe Emperor. This role of the Emperor is similar to the RoyalAssent in some other nations; however, the Emperor cannot refuseto promulgate a law and therefore his legislative role is merely aformality.

The House of Representatives is the more powerful chamber of theDiet.While the House of Representatives cannot usually overrule the

House of Councillors on a bill, the House of Councillors can onlydelay the adoption of a budget or a treaty that has been approvedby the House of Representatives, and the House of Councillors hasalmost no power at all to prevent the lower house from selectingany Prime Minister it wishes. Furthermore, once appointed it is the

confidence of the House of Representatives alone that the PrimeMinister must enjoy in order to continue in office. The House ofRepresentatives can overrule the upper house in the followingcircumstances:


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If a bill is adopted by the House of Representatives and then eitherrejected, amended or not approved within 60 days by the House ofCouncillors, then the bill will become law if again adopted by the

House of Representatives by a majority of at least two-thirds ofmembers present.

If both houses cannot agree on a budget or a treaty, even throughthe appointment of a joint committee of the Diet, or if the House ofCouncillors fails to take final action on a proposed budget or treaty

within 30 days of its approval by the House of Representatives, thenthe decision of the lower house is deemed to be that of the Diet.[12]

If both houses cannot agree on a candidate for Prime Minister, eventhrough a joint committee, or if the House of Councillors fails todesignate a candidate within 10 days of House of Representatives'decision, then the nominee of the lower house is deemed to be thatof the Diet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Diethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Diet


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Activities

Under the constitution at least one session of the Diet must beconvened each year. Technically only the House ofRepresentatives is dissolvedbefore an election but while thelower house is in dissolution the House of Councillors is

usually "closed". The Emperor both convokes the Diet anddissolves the House of Representatives but in doing mustact on the adviceof the Cabinet. In an emergency the Cabinetcan convoke the Diet for an extraordinary session, and anextraordinary session may be requested by one-quarter of the

members of either house.At the beginning of eachparliamentary session the Emperor reads a specialspeech outlining the government's plans for the coming yearfrom his throne in the chamber of the House of Councillors.


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The presence of one-third of the membership of either houseconstitutes a quorum and deliberations are in public unless at

least two-thirds of those present agree otherwise. Each houseelects its own presiding officer who exercises the casting votein the event of a tie. Members of each house have certainprotections against arrest while the Diet is in session andwords spoken and votes cast in the Diet enjoy parliamentary

privilege. Each house of the Diet determines its own standingorders and has responsibility for disciplining its ownmembers. A member may be expelled, but only by a two-thirds majority vote. Every member of the Cabinet has theright to appear in either house of the Diet for the purpose ofspeaking on bills, and each house has the right to compel theappearance of Cabinet members.


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History

Japan's first modern legislature was the Imperial Diet(Teikoku-gikai) established by the MeijiConstitution in force from 1889 to 1947. The MeijiConstitution was adopted on February 11, 1889 and the

Imperial Diet first met on November 29, 1890 when thedocument entered into operation. The Diet consisted of aHouse of Representatives and a House of Peers(Kizoku-in?). The House of Representatives was directly

elected, if on a limited franchise; universal adult malesuffrage was introduced in 1925. The House of Peers,much like the British House of Lords, consisted of highranking nobles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Installing_Japanese_character_setshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Installing_Japanese_character_sets


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The word dietderives from Latin and was acommon name for an assembly in medieval

Germany. The Meiji constitution was largelybased on the form of constitutional monarchyfound in nineteenth century Prussia and the newDiet was modeled partly on the German

Reichstag and partly on the British Westminstersystem. Unlike Japan's modern constitution, theMeiji constitution granted a real political role tothe Emperor, although in practice the Emperor'spowers were largely directed by a group ofoligarchs called the genr


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To become law or bill, a constitutionalamendment had to have the assent of both the

Diet and the Emperor. This meant that while theEmperor could no longer legislate by decree hestill had a veto over the Diet. The Emperor alsohad complete freedom in choosing the Prime

Minister and the Cabinet, and so, under theMeiji constitution, Prime Ministers often werenot chosen from and did not enjoy the

confidence of the Diet.

The Imperial Diet wasalso limited in its control over the budget. Whilethe Diet could veto the annual budget, if no

budget was approved the budget of the previous

year continued in force.


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The proportional representation system for the House ofCouncillors, introduced in 1982, was the first major

electoral reform under the postwar constitution. Insteadof choosing national constituency candidates asindividuals, as had previously been the case, voters cast

ballots for parties. Individual councilors, listed officiallyby the parties before the election, are selected on the

basis of the parties' proportions of the total nationalconstituency vote. The system was introduced to reducethe excessive money spent by candidates for the nationalconstituencies. Critics charged, however, that this new

system benefited the two largest parties, the LDP andthe Japan Socialist Party, which in fact had sponsoredthe reform.


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the national diet

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