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CHAPTER 27 GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES AND ELECTIONS
This chapter covers government employees and elections.
The section of government employees contains statistics on the actual and the fixed number of the national and the local government employees. The principal sources of data are "Survey on Recruitment of National Government Employees of General Class" compiled by the National Personnel Authority and "Survey on Wages of Local Government Employees" by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
The section of election contains statistics on elections of the members of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors, the prefectural governors and the prefectural assemblymen. The principal source is the data posted on the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Survey on Recruitment of National Government Employees of General Class
This survey has been conducted every year since fiscal 1954 by the National Personnel Authority in order to ascertain the situation of recruitment of the national government employees of the general class. Covered by the survey are the national government employees of the general class (excluding temporarily recruited employees, full-time labourers and part-time employees) on the payroll of the fiscal year. Questionnaires are sent by mail in principle to the organs having the appointing power.
The number of employees on the payroll relates to those (excluding persons holding concurrent posts) on the payroll as of 15?January of each year. Based on the provision of the National Public Service Act, positions of the national public servants are divided into general service and special service positions. The special service comprises the prime minister, ministers of state, senior vice-ministers, parliamentary secretaries, officials of courts, officials of the Diet, officials of the Ministry of Defense (a part of them are general service), etc. The general service comprises all positions of the national public servants other than those belonging to the special service.
Budgetary fixed number of national government employees
The maximum number of fixed personnel to be posted to each national organ is prescribed by the Regulation Concerning the Fixed Number of the Personnel of the Secretariat of the House of Representatives, the Regulation Concerning the Fixed Number of the Personnel of the Secretariat of the House of Councillors, the Act Concerning the Fixed Number of the Personnel of the Courts, the Law and the Ordinance Concerning the Fixed Number of the Personnel of the Administrative Organs, etc. In contrast, the budgetary fixed number is the portion of the above fixed maximum number for which budgetary measures were taken, and is laid down as the basic number for the compilation of the budget according to the kind of account, organisation, salary schedule applied, position, and grade and class.
Survey on Wages of Local Government Employees (Fundamental Statistical Survey)
In order to clarify the actual conditions of the wages and salaries of the local government employees, this survey was inaugurated in 1955, and has been taken every five years since 1958 by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. In addition, since 1962, a supplementary survey has been taken for the years when the above survey was not carried out. The survey, covering personnel on the payroll as of 1 April, is conducted as a mailing survey to the local public bodies.
Table 27-4 on local government employees covers employees in the "general" category only, excluding temporary employees, dispatched officials under the Fundamental Disaster Relief Act, etc. Local officials are also classified into "general" and "special". Special officials include assemblymen, head and deputies of local bodies, and other designated senior officials.
Elections
Statistics on elections presented in this Yearbook refer, among the elections under the Public Office Election Act, to the results of elections for the members of the House of Representatives, the members of the House of Councillors, the prefectural governors and the prefectural assemblymen. The data on candidates, vote and election results are compiled and released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
General election for the members of the House of Representatives
The general election takes place either by the expiration of the four-year term or by the dissolution of the House prior to the expiration of the term. The election is held by the dual system: the small constituency system, where one representative is elected from each constituency, and the proportional representation system for the eleven broad regions, where the party representatives for each region are chosen proportionally to the number of votes won by each political party in the region. For a long time since 1925 (except for a short period just after the war), general elections were held by the medium-size constituency system, and the present dual system was adopted at the 41st general election in 1996. At the time of this election for the members of the House of Representatives, the people's review has been also conducted for the Supreme Court justices who were appointed anew or whose term of office passed 10 years after the previous review.
Ordinary election for the members of the House of Councillors
The ordinary election is held every three years for the half of the seats to replace the members whose six-year term was expired and to fill the vacancies. The election is held by the dual system: the proportional representation system and the constituency system. The proportional representation system, where the party representatives are chosen proportionally to the number of votes won by each political party, was adopted the 13th ordinary election in 1983. As for the list of candidates for the proportional representation system, the "fixed-list system" was used up to the 18th ordinary election in1998, and the "open-list system" has been used since the 19th ordinary election in 2001.
Local elections
The ordinary election is for electing the whole member of an assembly of prefecture or municipality (shi (city), machi (town) and mura (village)), and is held not only at the expiration of the term but also at the dissolution of the assembly, etc. The election of governor of prefecture or head of municipality is held at the expiration of the term, and also, at such occasions as dismissal by recall, discharge by non-confidence, death, resignation, loss of qualification.
The unified local elections, in which as many local elections of assembly and head of local bodies as possible are conducted simultaneously, have been held every four years since 1947 with a purpose to stimulate the mood of election all over the country and to conduct the elections smoothly and efficiently.