Japan Press Weekly

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2012 May 23 - 29 TOP3 [CIVIL RIGHTS]

Osaka Mayor intends to impose penalty on city workers’ political activities

Osaka City Mayor Hashimoto Toru intends to enact a local law to restrict city workers’ political activities with varying degrees of punishment up to “imprisonment for 2 years or less”. There is no ordinance of this kind in any other local government in Japan.

The authorities plan to submit the ordinance bill to the city assembly in July.

For national government workers, however, the Government Official Act and Rules of the National Personnel Authority generally prohibit them from engaging in political activities. If a public worker violates the rules, he/she is imprisoned for not more than 3 years or fined 1,000,000 yen or less.

The Local Public Service Law imposes some restrictions on municipal workers’ political activities but it does not impose a penalty. It is illegal to punish local government workers using a local regulation that ignores the national law.

The unconstitutionality of imposing punishment on national government workers’ political activities has been questioned through lawsuits for a long time. Two cases are now being disputed in the Supreme Court over central government workers’ political actions in which they participated on days off from work in areas far removed from their workplaces.

Yoroi Takayoshi, professor emeritus at Ryukoku University said, “The Constitution guarantees the freedom of thought, creed, and political activities. Hashimoto’s policy will be extremely harmful to the general public.”