The gozen kaigi was the conference of government and military leaders held in the presence of the emperor. A Japanese encyclopedia says that its deliberation merely endorsed proposals already decided by the liaison conference of government and military and by the cabinet.
By custom, the emperor only listened to the proceedings. Apart from questions, he did not speak.
On March 7, 2019, a joint meeting of the Liberal Democratic Party’s health and labor division and its subcommittee on pharmaceutical affairs reviewed a bill to amend the pharmaceutical law. It agreed to leave the content to the division chair, Koizumi Shinjirō, and others. The headline in a trade newspaper noted that objections had also been raised.
A political science paper describes the party’s principle: approval in each division of its Policy Research Council, then unanimity in its General Council. These decisions, the paper says, have worked as de facto party discipline.
Before a Diet committee session, members send their questions to the ministries. This is called shitsumon tsūkoku, question notice. Officials then write the minister’s answers. In a 2025 survey by the Cabinet Personnel Bureau, half of the questions arrived two days or more before the session. Nearly all the rest arrived by 6 p.m. the day before.
On average, officials could start writing at 6:32 p.m. and finished the answers at 1:48 a.m.
Before the Japanese cabinet approves a government bill, the bill is first approved inside the governing Liberal Democratic Party. This is the jizen shinsa-sei, the prior review system.
The usual view dates it to a letter of 1962 from Akagi Munenori, chairman of the party’s General Council, to Chief Cabinet Secretary Ōhira Masayoshi. One study argues that it began in 1955, when the party was founded and approval by its Policy Research Council became a condition for a cabinet decision on a bill.
Until 2009, the top civil servants of the ministries, the administrative vice-ministers, met on the day before each cabinet meeting, normally twice a week. They met to settle the items for the cabinet, such as bills, cabinet orders and appointments.
On September 17, 2009, the day after the Democratic Party of Japan government took office, the meeting held its last session, to confirm its own abolition. In 2012, the Abe cabinet renamed an existing liaison meeting of the ministries the Vice-Ministers’ Liaison Meeting.
In the Japanese Diet, it is common practice for the handling of business to be decided in negotiations between the parties’ Diet Affairs Committees, the kokkai taisaku iinkai. At important moments, the committee chairs of the parties meet to settle it.
Many large Japanese companies have a jōmukai, a meeting of the managing directors. Unlike the board of directors and the shareholders’ meeting, it is not required by law.
Japanese encyclopedias describe it as the place where matters that the board will formally decide are discussed in substance. There, nearly all important management decisions are made.