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

In August 2024, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio announced that he would not seek reelection as leader of the LDP. Former Defense Minister Ishiba Shigeru was selected as the LDP’s leader in September and was made prime minister by the Diet on October 1. Ishiba was reelected prime minister in mid-November, after snap lower-house elections in October.

The 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 chamber.

Legislative elections are free and fair. In the October 2024 House of Representatives elections, the LDP and its coalition partner, Kōmeitō, won 191 seats and 24 seats respectively, losing their combined majority from the last parliament. The CDP won 148 seats, gaining 52. The Japan Innovation Party won 38 seats, while the Democratic Party for the People won 28. Smaller parties and independents captured the remainder, though six independents later joined the LDP.

In the July 2022 upper-house elections, the LDP and Kōmeitō 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. The Diet adopted legislation in late 2022 that triggered reviews for 140 lower-house districts, with the aim of lessening the disparity in population; 10 districts were ultimately abolished while 10 new districts were drawn. The new boundaries were used in the October 2024 elections.

Parties generally do not face undue restrictions on registration or operation. Ten parties were represented in the Diet as of 2024 and independents hold seats in each chamber. Splits and mergers among existing parties are not uncommon.

While the LDP has governed for most of Japan’s post–World War II history, there have been democratic transfers of power to and from alternative parties. Opposition parties are represented in the Diet 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. A nonbinding 2018 gender-parity law urges parties to nominate equal numbers of male and female candidates. Women represented only 23.4 percent of all candidates in the October 2024 lower-house elections, though the number of women who registered broke a postwar record. Women held 15.7 percent of that chamber’s seats after the elections. Ishiba appointed only two women to his cabinet after the polls.

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 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.

The LDP continued to grapple with the revelation of a yearslong kickback scheme, in which participants allegedly under-reported fundraising revenue, in 2024. Several individuals were indicted for their suspected involvement in January, though several senior LDP members were not indicted for lack of evidence. In mid-January, the Kyodo News agency reported that the faction led by former Prime Minister Kishida and the faction affiliated with the late Abe Shinzō, the party’s largest, planned to disband over the scandal. Nikai Toshihiro, a former secretary general of the party, retired from frontline politics due to the scandal in March. The Diet enacted a revised law to reform political-funding rules in June, though opposition parties called the revisions insufficient.

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 June 2024, The Asahi Shimbun reported that the Kagoshima prefectural police had raided a news site that was reporting on police operations. The local outlet, Hunter, reported that the police had called for the disposal of investigative material in an internal document.

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

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. Pro-Palestinian rallies and protests prompted by allegations that US military personnel stationed in Okinawa committed sexual assault were held in 2024.

In August 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that Momoi Kio’s right to expression was violated when police removed her from an election rally in Sapporo in 2019. Kio had heckled the late Abe Shinzō, then the prime minister, at the rally.

Nongovernmental organizations 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 September 2024, Hakamada Iwao, a man who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1968, was acquitted by a court after it found that evidence used against him was fabricated. Hakamata, who served 46 years on death row, had previously claimed he was beaten before confessing.

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. The last execution in Japan was carried out in 2022.

There are frequent reports of substandard medical care in prisons. In March 2024, the Tokyo District Court rejected a suit from the relatives of the late Aishima Shizuo, a corporate executive who died of cancer while in detention. Aishima’s relatives accused the authorities of effectively denying him access to medical treatment.

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.

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 2024, the revised Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act was enacted to permit the deportation of asylum seekers who make more than two applications. Critics say the changes may result in deportation of asylum seekers to countries where they face persecution.

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. Japan’s family-registration system, 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. In March 2024, six couples filed a lawsuit arguing that the requirement was unconstitutional.

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. Several courts ruled that the same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional in 2024; the Sapporo High Court and the Tokyo District Court issued rulings in March and the Fukuoka High Court ruled in December. Later in December, Prime Minister Ishiba said he would not introduce legislation to address same-sex marriage rights.

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 April 2024, truck, taxi, and bus drivers were limited to 18 hours’ overtime per week, as were doctors and construction workers.

In May 2024, the House of Representatives voted in favor of the Japan Immigration Act; the law will replace the Technical Intern Training Program for foreign-born workers, which has faced criticism over poor working conditions. Under the Japan Immigration Act, participants in a new training-and-employment scheme will have more flexibility changing employment, though they may lose their resident status if they engage in tax evasion or do not pay social-insurance charges. Those who facilitate illegal work will face fines or imprisonment. Implementation began before year’s end, with a new training system expected to function in 2027.

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