Political Rights
The Constitution provides citizens with the right to change their government peacefully, and citizens exercised this right in practice through periodic, free, and fair elections held on the basis of universal suffrage. The country is a parliamentary democracy governed by the political party or parties able to form a majority in the lower house of its bicameral Diet. The LDP and the New Komeito Party formed the existing coalition government. Except for a brief hiatus in the 1990s, the LDP has been the dominant party in every government since the mid-1950s. The last general elections were held in on September 11, 2005, and elections for the Upper House were held in July 2003.
According to National Police Agency figures for January through June 2003, there were 43 arrests involving political corruption for such charges as bribery, bid-rigging, and violation of the Political Funds Control Law. This was an increase of 14 cases from the previous year for the same time period. In recent years, the numbers of women holding public office has slowly increased. As of July 2003, women held 34 of 480 seats in the Lower House of the Diet and 33 seats in the 242-seat Upper House. As of September 2003, there were two women in the Cabinet. As of April 2003, 4 of the country's 47 governors were women.
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In Japan
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or rights:
“Generally speaking, the political news, whether domestic or foreign, might be written today for the next ten years with sufficient accuracy. Most revolutions in society have not power to interest, still less alarm us; but tell me that our rivers are drying up, or the genus pine dying out in the country, and I might attend.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights that America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored. We will never be recognized as citizens there until we are first recognized as humans.”
—Malcolm X (1925–1965)