Newspaper coverage in English tends to suggest that this is the first time the LDP has really lost power since 1955. Commentators usually do mention its loss in 1993, but add that this was only for a year. This overlooks the fact that the SDP led a coalition incorporating the LDP from 1994-6, which saw some significant political developments (eg a major settlement of the long-running Minamata Disease litigation). More importantly, the year the LDP was completely out of power generated important legislation ranging from measures promoting transparency in administrative procedures through to strict liability for defective products. It also laid the groundwork for further substantive law reforms in similar areas, such as the Official Information Disclosure Act of 2001 and the Consumer Contracts Act 2000.

Most importantly, the LDP’s fall from power in 1993 made them and the bureaucracy reassess their close relationship. LDP politicians realised that even once back in power, they might lose again. From that perspective, a political process more open to diverse stakeholders – including ‘opposition’ interests – became more attractive. As part of this ongoing rethink, from the late 1990s the ‘deliberative council’ system for law reform certainly became more transparent, and alternative law-making processes developed as well (eg private Members’ Bills).

The LDP, prompted also by the Komeito, also began incorporating many centrist policies into its own program – trying to steal the DPJ’s thunder. Such developments provide a partial explanation for the counter-intuitive situation of a conservative coalition pressing ahead with major judicial reforms from 2001, These covered not just civil justice (which at least some business interests also wanted), but also criminal justice (including the new quasi-jury system, with its first trial recently concluded in the Tokyo District Court).

These shifts – accommodating concerns of a wider voter base, in a more porous process serving as a back-up plan in case the LDP lost power again – seemed to be working out quite well, especially as the Japanese economy finally returned to a growth path from 2002-7. But then came the global financial crisis and economic stagnation that is potentially far worse than during Japan’s ‘lost decade’ of the 1990s, because it was driven by the world-wide collapse of all Japan’s major markets for both exports and investment (including even China). Those who had already suffered from major socio-economic reforms and Japan’s banking crisis in the late 1990s became increasingly concerned about the LDP’s capacity to address these even larger challenges. One such group comprised the burgeoning numbers of ‘involuntary non-regular workers’, young men and others who no longer had the option of one day joining the elite ‘lifelong employee’ cadre rather than deliberately choosing not to take up that life. (This group was highlighted in the recent lecture on ‘flexicurity’ presented at Sydney Law School by former Tokyo University Law Dean, Emeritus Professor Kazuo Sugeno). Unsurprisingly, despite LDP-led law reform in 2007 aimed at part of this group, the DPJ was able to attract a much higher proportion of younger voters.

All this means that we may not witness now huge changes in both the style and substance of law reform in Japan. This will not merely be because the DPJ government is new and relatively inexperienced, or due to reactionary forces, but also because some significant changes were already afoot. It is interesting, for example, to compare the pre-election manifestos of the LDP and the DPJ (themselves one indication of broader transformations in Japanese politics over the last decade) and other policy statements. On the other hand, it is certainly worth examining the DJP’s manifesto ‘promises’ to get a better idea of the new government’s likely legislative program for the next few years.

The DPJ’s policy summary (not necessarily identical to their manifesto distributed during the election compaign) is still currently only available in Japanese. While the pace of change may be slow, the DPJ states policies relating to a wide variety of areas of law reform. Particularly, the recognition of Ainu as an indigenous people, allowing married couples to retain separate surnames, placing limits on amakudari [descent from heaven], ie retiring from government into private sector jobs, greater devolution and citizen involvement in governance, securing better conditions for non-regular workers, and preventing and resolving disputes based on the Labour Contracts Act.