The prime minister is the head of government and is chosen by the freely elected parliament. The prime minister selects the cabinet, which can include a limited number of ministers who are not members of the parliament. Japan’s emperor serves as head of state in a ceremonial capacity.

In September 2021, following the resignation of Suga Yoshihide, the LDP chose Kishida Fumio as its new leader, and the parliament voted to confirm him as prime minister a few days later.

The parliament, or Diet, has two chambers. The more powerful lower house, the House of Representatives, has 465 members elected to maximum four-year terms through a mixture of single-member districts and proportional representation. The upper house, the House of Councillors, has 248 members serving fixed six-year terms, with half elected every three years using a mixture of nationwide proportional representation and prefecture-based voting. The prime minister and the cabinet can dissolve the lower house, but not the upper house. The lower house can also pass a no-confidence resolution that forces the cabinet to either resign or dissolve the lower house.

Legislative elections are free and fair. In the October 2021 lower-house elections, the LDP won 259 seats, and its coalition partner, Komeito, took 32. Some independents later joined the LDP, adding to its majority. The largest opposition group, the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), won 96 seats. Smaller parties and independents captured the remainder.

In the July 2022 upper-house elections, the LDP and Komeito won 76 of the 125 contested seats, giving them an overall majority in the chamber. The CDP won 17 seats, while smaller parties and independents again accounted for the remainder.

Japan’s electoral laws are generally fair and well enforced. Campaigning is heavily regulated, which typically benefits incumbents, although the rules are applied equally to all candidates.

Malapportionment in favor of the rural districts from which the LDP draws significant support has been a persistent problem, despite a series of reforms to reduce the disparity with urban districts. Three members were added to the upper house in 2022 as part of the reform effort. The Diet adopted legislation in late 2022 to revise boundaries for as many as 140 districts, with the aim of keeping the disparity between the most and least populated districts below a two-to-one ratio.

Parties generally do not face undue restrictions on registration or operation. Ten parties were represented in the Diet as of 2023, and independents also held a number of seats in each chamber. Splits and mergers among existing parties are not uncommon.

While the LDP has governed for most of Japan’s postwar history, there have been democratic transfers of power to and from alternative parties. Opposition parties are represented in the parliament and govern at the subnational level.

People’s political choices are generally free from improper interference by powerful interests that are not democratically accountable.

Citizens enjoy equal rights to vote and run in elections regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

Women remain underrepresented in government. While a nonbinding 2018 gender parity law urges parties to nominate equal numbers of male and female candidates, women represented only 17.7 percent of all candidates in the October 2021 lower-house elections. Women held 10.3 percent of that chamber’s seats as of 2023. In a cabinet reshuffle in September 2023, Prime Minister Kishida appointed a record-tying five women to his cabinet.

About 600,000 ethnic Koreans born in Japan hold special residency privileges but not Japanese citizenship, meaning they are ineligible to participate in local or national elections. Most but not all are South Korean nationals, and they have the option of applying for Japanese citizenship.

The Ainu, an Indigenous people numbering at least 20,000, live mostly on the northern island of Hokkaido. The Ainu Party was launched in 2012 but has not subsequently won parliamentary seats.

Elected officials are free to govern without undue interference, though senior civil servants have some influence over policy.

The prevalence of corruption in government is relatively low, media coverage of political corruption scandals is widespread and vigorous, and officials who are implicated face criminal prosecution. Some government officials have close relations with business leaders that could raise concerns about conflicts of interest. Retiring bureaucrats often quickly secure high-paying positions with companies that receive significant government contracts.

In December 2023, prosecutors searched the offices of two LDP factions and questioned senior party members. The month before, press outlets reported on a scheme in which participants belonging to five factions allegedly under-reported fundraising revenue. In early December, the Asahi Shimbun reported that members belonging to the faction of the late Abe Shinzō benefited from a kickback scheme involving fundraising-event tickets. Investigators focused on two factions, including Abe’s. Kishida dismissed four ministers who were implicated, all of them belonging to Abe’s faction, and resigned as the leader of his own faction.

The government generally operates with openness and transparency. Access to information legislation allows individuals to request information from government agencies, though the law has not always been implemented effectively. Government officials have at times withheld information from lawmakers and the public in connection with political scandals.

Freedom of the press is guaranteed in the constitution, and Japan has a highly competitive media sector. However, a 2014 law allows journalists to be prosecuted for revealing state secrets. Article 4 of the Broadcast Act gives the government the power to determine what information is “fair” and thus acceptable for public broadcast.

Under the traditional kisha kurabu (press club) system, institutions such as government ministries and corporate organizations have restricted the release of news to journalists and media outlets with membership in their clubs. In recent years online media and weekly newsmagazines have challenged the daily papers’ dominance of political news with more aggressive reporting.

In August 2023, members of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights accused the media of failing to cover sexual-abuse allegations against the late Johnny Kitagawa. Kitagawa had exerted influence over television stations that featured the musicians his agency represented.

Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution, and there are no substantial barriers to religious practice or the expression of nonbelief. The constitution also stipulates that no religious organization shall receive any privileges from the state.

In July 2022, former prime minister Abe Shinzō was assassinated by Yamagami Tetsuya, who reportedly blamed the Unification Church for bankrupting his family through its extraction of donations from adherents. Yamagami targeted Abe because of his political relationship with the church. Subsequent news reports revealed links between many LDP politicians and the Unification Church. Yamagami was formally indicted on charges including murder in January 2023. In October, the government said it would file for a court order that would effectively dissolve the church, which the church vowed to oppose.

Academic freedom is constitutionally guaranteed and mostly respected in practice, but education and textbooks have long been a focus of public and political debate. While there is not a national curriculum or single official history text, the Ministry of Education’s screening process has approved textbooks that downplay Japan’s history of imperialism and war atrocities.

The government generally does not restrict personal expression or private discussion. Some observers have raised concerns that antiterrorism and anticonspiracy legislation that went into effect in 2017 could permit undue surveillance.

Freedom of assembly is protected under the constitution, and peaceful demonstrations take place frequently. In 2023, protests were held on topics including immigration legislation. The first LGBT+ pride parade in Tokyo in four years was held in April.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are generally free from undue restrictions.

Most workers have the legal right to organize, bargain collectively, and strike. However, public-sector workers are barred from striking, and some, such as firefighters and prison staff, cannot form unions. Labor unions are active and exert political influence through the Japanese Trade Union Confederation and other groups.

Japan’s judiciary is independent, and judges cannot be removed arbitrarily. Japanese citizens may remove individual Supreme Court judges through a majority vote in periodic reviews that coincide with parliamentary elections.

For serious criminal cases, a judicial panel composed of professional judges and saiban-in (lay judges), selected from the general public, render verdicts.

Constitutional due process guarantees are generally upheld. However, observers have argued that trials often favor the prosecution. There are reports that suspects have been detained on flimsy evidence, arrested multiple times for the same alleged crime, or subjected to lengthy interrogations that yield what amount to forced confessions. Police can detain suspects for up to 23 days without charge. Access to those in pretrial detention is sometimes limited.

In March 2023, the Tokyo High Court ordered a retrial for Hakamada Iwao, a man who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1968. Hakamada, who entered home confinement in 2014, claimed he confessed after being beaten.

People in Japan are generally protected from the illegitimate use of physical force and the threat of war and insurgencies. Violent crime rates are low. However, organized crime is fairly prominent, particularly in the construction and nightlife sectors; crime groups also run drug-trafficking and loan-sharking operations.

Prisoners who face death sentences or are accused of crimes that could carry the death penalty are held in solitary confinement, sometimes for years at a time. There are frequent reports of substandard medical care in prisons.

Societal discrimination against foreigners and various minority groups has generally declined over time, but it can affect access to housing and employment.

A law adopted in 2016 was intended to eliminate discrimination against Japan’s estimated three million burakumin—descendants of feudal-era outcasts. The law obliges national and local governments to provide advice, support, and education on the issue, but it does not assign penalties for acts of discrimination.

A 2019 law officially recognized the Ainu as an Indigenous people of Japan, though it failed to offer an apology for past mistreatment.

Employment discrimination and sexual harassment against women are common.

Japan-born descendants of colonial subjects (particularly ethnic Koreans and Chinese) experience discrimination. A 2016 hate-speech law calls on the government to take steps to eliminate discriminatory speech against ethnic minorities, but it carries no penalties for perpetrators.

LGBT+ people face social stigma and in some cases harassment. In June 2023, the Diet passed a law obliging the government to create a plan to address anti-LGBT+ discrimination and “promote understanding,” though observers said the law was not comprehensive. In July, the Supreme Court ruled that a government ministry’s regulations restricting a transgender female employee’s access to restrooms were illegal.

Asylum is granted to less than 1 percent of those who apply each year under Japan’s strict screening process, and very few refugees are accepted for third-country resettlement in Japan. In June 2023, despite criticism from legal experts and NGOs, the Diet amended the ICRRA to permit the deportation of asylum seekers who make more than two applications. In August, the government said it would, on a one-time basis and at the justice minister’s discretion, grant residency for some 140 nonresident minors who were born in Japan to foreign parents. Nonresident minors would not benefit if their parents illegally entered Japan or have criminal records.

There are few significant restrictions on internal or international travel, or on individuals’ ability to change their place of residence, employment, and education.

Property rights are generally respected, and individuals are free to establish and operate private businesses.

While personal social freedoms are mostly protected, there are some limitations. The country’s system of family registration, koseki, recognizes people as members of a family unit and requires married couples to share a surname, which usually defaults to the husband’s surname. This can create legal complications for women as well as children born out of wedlock or to divorced parents, among others.

There is no legal recognition of same-sex marriage in Japan. Some municipal and prefectural governments, including the Tokyo metropolitan government, allow the registration of same-sex partnerships. The Nagoya District Court ruled that the ban on same-sex marriages was unconstitutional in May 2023. In June, the Fukuoka District Court ruled that the ban was not unconstitutional, though it called for legal changes to account for same-sex couples.

Domestic violence is punishable by law, and protective orders and other services are available for victims, but such abuse often goes unreported.

Individuals generally enjoy equality of opportunity, and the legal framework provides safeguards against exploitative working conditions. However, long workdays are common in practice and have been criticized as harmful to workers’ health. Many workers are temporary or contract employees with substantially lower wages, fewer benefits, and less job security than regular employees.

In September 2023, the Johnny & Associates talent agency admitted that its founder, the late Johnny Kitagawa, sexually abused young aspiring musicians for decades. The case received attention after the BBC aired a documentary detailing allegations against Kitagawa in March. In August, experts from the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights said that hundreds had likely been abused, possibly since the 1950s. In October, Johnny & Associates announced that it would split into two organizations, one of which would compensate victims and then dissolve.

In April 2023, a government panel submitted a plan to eliminate a foreign-trainee program, with many participants having allegedly been underpaid and abused. A final report, with details of a new program, was submitted in November.

Commercial sexual exploitation remains a problem. Traffickers frequently bring foreign women into Japan for forced sex work by arranging fraudulent marriages with Japanese men.