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 July 1995, Daiwa Bank learned that a trader in New York had lost 1.1 billion dollars in unauthorized trading over 11 years. The United States authorities were told only on September 18. Japan’s Ministry of Finance had also kept them uninformed.
United States regulators then gave Daiwa 90 days to close or dispose of its operations in the United States.
Article 1 of Japan’s Civil Conciliation Act of 1951 states its purpose: to resolve civil disputes through mutual concession by the parties, in a way that is reasonable and fits the actual circumstances.
The Seventeen-Article Constitution, which the Nihon Shoki dates to 604 and credits to Prince Shōtoku, ends with this rule: Sore koto wa hitori sadamu bekarazu. Kanarazu shū to agetsurau beshi. Matters should not be decided by one person alone. They must always be discussed with others.
Its first article opens with a related idea. Harmony is to be valued, and avoiding opposition is to be the principle. Other early sources date the text to 602 or 605.
A ringi-sho is a proposal drafted at the lower levels of an organization and passed in turn to the relevant departments and sections. Each manager adds a personal seal, the hanko. Approval builds up level by level, and final approval rests with the head of the organization.
The political scientist Tsuji Kiyoaki studied the system in Japanese government. He criticized it because it spreads responsibility across many seals.
Nemawashi (根回し): going around the roots. In gardening, cutting the spreading roots of a tree one or two years before it is moved, so that fine new roots grow. At work, preparing a negotiation or meeting in advance so that it goes smoothly.
Sannin yoreba Monju no chie (三人寄れば文殊の知恵): when three people gather, they have the wisdom of Monju. Ordinary people who consult together in a group of three produce excellent ideas. Monju is the bodhisattva of wisdom.
Rentai sekinin (連帯責任): joint responsibility. A whole group answers for what one of its members did.
Under the Edo shogunate, households in towns and villages were organized into gonin-gumi, groups of five. The members of each group were jointly responsible for paying the annual tax and for keeping public order.
Mura hachibu is the general term for the sanctions carried out in Japanese village society.
A popular explanation says that the word means cutting off eight of the ten kinds of social contact between households, all except fires and funerals. A Japanese encyclopedia notes that this explanation is widespread but has no basis.
Article 66, paragraph 3 of the Constitution of Japan reads: Naikaku wa, gyōseiken no kōshi ni tsuite, kokkai ni taishi rentai shite sekinin o ou. In the exercise of executive power, the Cabinet bears collective responsibility to the Diet.