September 3, 2020.
This article examines Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s March 2012 warning that Japan’s parliamentary system “wears down its leaders.”
Japan’s prime minister attended the Diet on 127 days, far exceeding the recorded speaking days of the leaders of France, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
It also explains how seven-hour Budget Committee sessions deprive the prime minister of the time and energy required for international negotiations and the pursuit of the national interest.

The following is the article introduced in the preceding chapter.
The Burden Placed on the Prime Minister by Attendance in the Diet
March 2015
Norihiko Narita
In March 2012, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda stated during a meeting of the House of Councillors Budget Committee, “Japan has a system that wears down its leaders.”
He made the statement in response to an opposition party member who had argued that the situation in which prime ministers were replaced one after another should be changed.
Prime Minister Noda recounted an episode from a period when he had travelled abroad for three consecutive weeks to attend summit meetings and other events, saying that U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak had remarked that they were “unsteady on their feet.”
“During that period, they were not called before their parliaments, whereas I was summoned every day,” he said.
He thus expressed his recognition that, compared with the leaders of other countries, Japan’s prime minister bears a heavy burden in responding to the Diet and consequently becomes exhausted.
He proposed “a candid discussion between the ruling and opposition parties on how to create circumstances in which the nation’s leader can appear on the stage of international negotiations in full vigour.”
In response to Prime Minister Noda’s proposal, the Nippon Academia, established by business leaders and scholars to foster Japan’s leaders, issued a proposal in September of that year entitled “Emergency Recommendations on Diet Reform by Members of the Nippon Academia.”
It proposed “giving the prime minister and ministers of state sufficient time to consider the national interest and act accordingly.”
It also presented data concerning the number of days on which the leaders of various countries attended or spoke in their respective legislatures.
Japan’s prime minister attended the Diet on 127 days from January through December 2011.
The French prime minister spoke in parliament on 12 days from July 2007 through July 2008.
The British prime minister spoke in parliament on 36 days from December 2008 through November 2009.
The German chancellor spoke in parliament on 11 days from November 2009 through November 2010.
The proposal was also published in the October issue of the monthly magazine Bungeishunju under the title “‘Diet Reform’: A Patriotic Declaration of Resolve.”
In these data, the figure for Japan’s prime minister represents the number of days on which he attended the Diet, whereas the figures for the other leaders represent the number of days on which they spoke in parliament—that is, days on which at least one parliamentary statement was recorded.
In Japan, however, when the prime minister attends a Budget Committee meeting or another committee meeting in either house of the Diet, he is ordinarily required to remain there from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.
Excluding the one-hour lunch break, he is therefore detained for seven hours.
If the comparison were based on the total number of hours for which leaders are required to remain in parliament, the extent of the Japanese prime minister’s burden would be even more extraordinarily excessive.
Moreover, when a committee meeting begins at 9:00 a.m., the prime minister must rise at 5:00 a.m. and devote himself to preparing answers.
The burden is therefore far beyond what could be considered ordinary.