The Current Situation of Corruption in Japanese Officialdom

Because I have a relationship with a certain company, I drank with their senior staff. When I got into the taxi after drinking, I was handed a paper bag of local products. It seemed to be a normal exchange. But when you open it, the feeling will be completely different. For example, once I was celebrating the opening of a certain office. When I came back, I felt that the local paper bag was a bit heavy. When I opened it, I found it was a bundle of Japanese yen banknotes. One million yen per bag, one *** ten. Bag...

"Sir, please accept it. It's just a small gift. I'll make you laugh." He said and handed over the beautiful packaging bag. It looked like it contained snacks like yokan, but there was a sticker on it. There is a red label "Travel and Horseage Fee".

Oh, it must be money. The carriage fee is not 50,000 yuan, but one million.

When I first started working as a prosecutor, I often asked suspects like this: "Think about it clearly, you don't know where you spent a million like this?" It was true at that time. I thought the prisoner was not telling the truth, but later I discovered that as my status increased, I often couldn't remember where a certain million was spent.

This is how former Japanese prosecutor Tanaka Moriichi recalled his life in the 1960s and 1970s when Japan's corruption culture was at its most corrupt.

Tanaka Moriichi began serving as a prosecutor in 1971. Because of his excellent work, he was transferred to the Special Investigation Department of the Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office, specializing in investigating major corruption and malfeasance cases. He is known for his shrewdness, ability and uprightness when investigating cases, and is known as the "Ghost Judge of the Tokyo Prefectural Prosecutor's Office". He suddenly resigned in 1987 and became a lawyer, serving the Yamaguchi-gumi and other underworld organizations. Because he is familiar with the legal world, he is known as the "protector of the underworld." In 2000, Tanaka was arrested and imprisoned in the Ishibashi Industry case. His documentary autobiography "Inversion - The Protector of the Underworld" profoundly exposed the collusion between Japanese political circles, unscrupulous businessmen and underworld, and caused great repercussions among the Japanese people.

In 2007, the book was listed as the best-selling book in Japan.

Familyization has intensified the growth of corruption

Almost like the problems encountered by all countries in their period of great development, Japan also experienced rampant corruption and bribery during its economic boom. The rapid increase in social wealth provides the soil for corruption to grow. The nepotism and familialization of Japanese government officials has intensified this process. The social injustice caused by corruption has also caused great dissatisfaction among the people.

The most important phenomenon of corruption in Japan is commercial bribery. Some business organizations or underworld groups in Japan often send large sums of money to political parties that may be elected to express their support, and they also become the employers of these political parties in disguise, forcing them to serve their own interests after being elected. This is called "political donation."

The political and business circles form interest groups through political donations and other methods. Businessmen gain benefits from project contracting and other aspects, while officials secretly share dividends.

Because this kind of group has great energy, it can often manipulate elections and form hereditary forces in several constituencies. This phenomenon is still common today. For example, the powerful Democratic Party giants Ozawa and Hatoyama have recently been exposed to political donation scandals, making the originally clear election situation confusing. This also shows the Japanese people’s deep hatred of corruption and bribery.

In 1976, former Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was arrested for the Lockheed bribery case, which can be said to have triggered a super earthquake in Japan. Although there are political factors behind this case, the sanctimonious prime minister is associated with corruption and bribery, which is like a fuse, triggering the outbreak of corruption and bribery issues in Japan's government and opposition parties. Since then, under the supervision of public opinion, the Japanese government has effectively strengthened the control and crackdown on commercial bribery.

Three-dimensional anti-corruption system: from culture to system

Today in world public opinion, Japanese civil servants have a relatively good reputation. In Japan, when civil servants serve as guarantors and borrowers, they are more trusted than people in other professions.

The good image of Japanese civil servants is inseparable from strict management and supervision. Chinese living in Japan can also feel the Japanese government's strict requirements for civil servants. The reason is probably related to their unique and effective anti-corruption measures. After decades of tempering, Japan has formed a three-dimensional anti-corruption system.

This anti-corruption system has unique Japanese characteristics and is rooted in Japan’s unique national culture and political culture.

This system mainly includes efficient and independent judicial institutions, a unique supervision system, a relatively complete legal system, and public opinion supervision.

An independent judicial institution refers to the fact that Japan’s judicial department is independent of Congress and government agencies and is free from their control and interference in handling cases. Therefore, judges are more likely to convict politicians who have committed corruption and are less likely to suffer retaliation. The Tokyo District Prosecutor's Office and the Osaka District Prosecutor's Office have "Special Investigation Departments" that mainly conduct investigations into cases involving senior officials.

The full name of the Special Investigation Department is the Special Investigation Department. It is an agency under the Japanese prosecutorial agency. It specializes in investigating and investigating huge tax evasion, major economic crimes, corruption and malfeasance of public officials, and combats illegal activities in the political and business circles for Japan. The main force of the activity.

Tanaka Kakuei's case may be the first to clearly demonstrate the importance of an independent judiciary. His case was a bribery case with a quasi-family background, because the bribes he was involved in were all handled through a secretary who had been his lover for many years. Japanese people believe that precisely because the judiciary is not part of the government, when investigating corruption and bribery by officials, the judiciary can pursue difficult cases such as family affairs and corruption and bribery. Finally complete the investigation.

Japan’s official supervision system is indeed relatively unique. Unlike most countries, the Japanese government does not have an independent supervisory agency. Instead, it conducts "self-suppression" supervision through the government offices within each department. The internal supervision of various government departments in Japan is relatively strict. This is because once the internal supervision fails, there is a risk of directly entering legal proceedings. This is beyond the control of the administrative system and will cause a major blow to the reputation and performance of the department. It seems that the level of supervision is weak, but in fact it is similar to the accountability system, which in turn strengthens the intensity of supervision.

As a unique national condition of Japan, most officials come from political families. They are inextricably linked to each other and have a relatively deep understanding of each other. Restricted by the concept of human rights, the anti-corruption department has many restrictions on investigating crimes committed by officials' families. However, corruption cases are often carried out by corrupt officials through family members. Therefore, in Japan, investigations of corruption cases began to involve relatives of officials in the 1980s.

However, paternalism is prevalent within Japanese government departments. Subordinates are extremely obedient to their superiors and have strong feudal patriarchal characteristics. Therefore, within government departments, superiors have stricter control over subordinates, and supervision has a higher degree of freedom, which is conducive to preventing and nipping problems in the bud.

The relatively complete legal system refers to the fact that Japanese law not only has complete provisions in the criminal law for commercial bribery, but also continuously adjusts it according to the actual situation to make it more targeted. For example, in response to the phenomenon of collusion between some officials and businessmen and the establishment of a network of relationships, the Japanese criminal law includes the crime of "simple bribery." As long as you have a public official position, it is a crime to take money from another person related to the official official position, or to ask the other person to give money; and it does not matter whether you are doing things for the other person. Japan's government project bidding is a hotbed of corruption and bribery. Therefore, Japan has specially formulated the "Crimes of Obstructing Fair Bidding for Public Projects" to deal with officials' crimes in this situation. These highly targeted amendments try to avoid the situation where the law lags behind crime and plug possible loopholes at any time.

Japan’s public opinion supervision plays a more subtle role in preventing official family crimes. First of all, the Japanese people hate corruption and bribery, so public opinion attaches great importance to their supervisory role. The characteristics of Eastern officials (the American scholar Benedict, in his famous work "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword", which studied the cultural psychology of Japanese people, said that "Oriental officials have a tradition of corruption". Author's note), also makes the public have a negative attitude toward officials. There are many doubts about families seeking personal gain. Therefore, whenever an official is elected, the press will provide the official's family relationship chart for publication as soon as possible, and even the Prime Minister of Japan is no exception. For example, when any prime minister has just started taking office, the press will publish the marriage status and kinship relationship diagram of his family down to his great-grandfather, so that the prime minister's social relationships can be seen at a glance.

The Japanese press has the traditional spirit of paparazzi, and the "harassment" of public figures has reached an unscrupulous level. The vehicles of the prime minister or senior officials are tracked by reporters 24 hours a day, and as long as they appear in public On any occasion, even the moment you get off the car and walk up the steps, you will be "disturbed" by reporters' questions. In this case, reporters will find ways to put their ears close to the official's mouth in order to hear the official's answer clearly.

So much so that a Japanese Prime Minister once said to a reporter: "Please stay away, I am not interested in a big man like you..." Under this kind of transparency, even if officials want to carry out some illegal activities, their concerns are limited. higher.

Under such an anti-corruption system, a series of huge political donation cases have been exposed since the early 1990s. Even several Japanese Prime Ministers fell because of black money cases, which has a great impact on the governance of Japan. The political atmosphere played a positive role.

Corruption among high-ranking officials can "escape"

However, in today's Japanese society, cases of commercial bribery still emerge one after another, creating a situation where civil servants have a clean image, but senior officials are constantly being caught. Strange phenomenon.

The reason is related to a special phenomenon in Japanese politics, which is the strict separation of "officials" and "officials". The so-called separation of officials and officials refers to Japan’s current civil servants, including senior officials in charge of power and ordinary civil servants who perform specific administrative functions. The latter are subject to strict system restrictions and may lose their jobs even if citizens complain. The so-called Japanese government officials are incorruptible. In fact, the impression comes from them. However, although senior officials who are specifically in charge of power are also subject to legal provisions that restrict ordinary civil servants, due to their different status, such restrictions have little effect. Although severe crackdowns in recent years have led to some restraint, their traditional collusion with the underworld and chaebols has made it difficult for them to escape this lifeline.

The forms of commercial bribery adopted by these senior officials are often very cunning, making it difficult for the judiciary to deal with them easily. For example, there have been many cases where officials shifted the blame to the secretary after a case occurred, while the secretary took full responsibility in accordance with the Eastern principle of "a scholar dies for a confidant." Although everyone knows what is going on, there is still no way to punish officials who accept bribes. deal with.

The most typical case is probably the bribery case involving Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara. The briber, Isao Mizutani, the president of Mizutani Construction Company, provided a "congratulatory gift" of 20 million yen to Representative Hirotaka Ishihara at a banquet in September 2005 on the pretext of celebrating his election. This gift, which is far beyond the meaning of ordinary congratulatory gifts, is quite confusing, because as a young member of the House of Representatives who was elected for the first time, I really can't see any reason for Mizutani to do this. But if you look at Ishihara Hirotaka's family, you will understand something - Ishihara Hirotaka is the third son of the powerful Shintaro Ishihara. Moreover, photos provided in subsequent reports revealed that Shintaro Ishihara himself also participated in the donation banquet.

Such a case with great social impact could not be handled because Ishihara and his son threw out Ishihara Hiroka's secretary and made him resign as a scapegoat. As a result, he escaped legal punishment.

On March 3, 2009, the Special Investigation Department of the Tokyo District Prosecutor’s Office arrested Takuki Okubo, the chief secretary of Japan’s largest opposition Democratic Party representative Ichiro Ozawa, on suspicion of violating the Political Funds Regulation Act. . On May 11, Ichiro Ozawa officially announced his resignation as a representative of the Democratic Party to eliminate the negative impact on the Democratic Party caused by his secretary's alleged political donation scandal. But so far, despite all kinds of discussions, there has not been any news that Ozawa has accepted judicial investigation.

It can be seen that the construction of clean government in Japan is still a troublesome topic.

Information

Japan’s prosecutorial system

Although Japan is a constitutional monarchy, the establishment of its state institutions is greatly influenced by the United States and is implemented under the emperor. The legislative, executive and judicial powers are separated. As an integral part of the administrative sequence, the prosecutorial office is established in the Ministry of Justice. However, it is not a functional agency of the Ministry of Justice, but a special administrative agency with considerable independence. The Ministry of Justice only provides general guidance and coordination to the prosecutorial office and cannot directly command it. Prosecutors and case investigation.

Prosecutorial personnel are divided into three categories: prosecutors, prosecutorial affairs officers and prosecutorial technical officers. They all serve as central civil servants and are subject to standardized and strict management in accordance with the law.

In terms of the establishment of prosecutorial offices, according to the provisions of Japan’s Prosecutorial Office Law, the establishment of prosecutorial offices at all levels strictly corresponds to the establishment of courts at all levels. There are four levels of prosecutorial offices across the country, namely the Supreme Prosecutor's Office, the Higher Prosecutor's Office, the District Prosecutor's Office and the District Prosecutor's Office. Vertical leadership is implemented between superior and lower-level procuratorates. The lower-level procuratorates are only responsible to the superior procuratorates and are not subject to the constraints of other administrative agencies and local governments.

Japan implements prosecutors’ monopoly on prosecutions and a system of easy prosecution, and prosecutors have great power. In practice, prosecutors decide not to prosecute many cases.

In order to effectively prevent prosecutors from acting arbitrarily or abusing their right not to prosecute, and to strengthen supervision and restrictions on prosecutors' exercise of power, Japan has established a prosecutorial review committee system since World War II. The Procuratorial Review Council is a specialized organization that supervises prosecutors' exercise of the right not to prosecute, and is established within each local court and local court branch. The procuratorial review committee is composed of 11 procuratorial examiners randomly selected from voters, and one alternate procuratorial examiner is selected for a term of six months. All citizens with the right to vote are eligible to be elected as prosecutors and examiners.

The Procuratorial Review Committee has two powers: first, to review whether the prosecutor’s decision not to prosecute is appropriate in accordance with legal procedures, and to make a decision on whether to initiate a public prosecution again; second, to improve procuratorial affairs Provide suggestions and advice to the relevant chief prosecutor. However, both powers are currently flexible and not binding on prosecutors