Research on Personnel Management of Senior Judges
in Japan: Using Career Resources as an Indicator
NISHIKAWA Shin-ichi

Summary
1. Why does this book focus on the personnel management of senior
judges?
Political science, and especially theories of the state, has almost neverfocused on “the court” as a target of analysis. There has been a tendency for“the court” to be considered as a research area belonging entirely to legalsociology and not to political science. However, trials are an institutional functionthat is both essential and inherent to the state. Only the state can legally put aperson to death by means of a trial. Therefore, “the court” is a theme that cannot
be overlooked in any political analysis of the realities of the modern state. With akeen awareness of these issues, this book aims to fill in the blanks, so to speak,in the analysis of the modern state.
This book focuses on the personnel management of senior judges in Japan.
The research empirically demonstrates that contrary to the notion of theindependence of judges guaranteed by the Constitution, a method of personnelmanagement, which makes judges conscious of their rating and career
progression, has been institutionalized within the judiciary in Japan. This bookdissects the present situation in order to demonstrate that the Japanese judiciaryhas the same problems as a bureaucratic organization performing administrativefunctions.
2. What kind of analytical technique is used?
The method of analysis used in this book is a hypothetical concept called“career resources,” which is defined as “a personal history or prior position
anticipated to be useful in future career progression.” Career resources include
the universities from which judges graduated, judges’ experience of service(kyokuduki and/or kacho) at the General Secretariat of the Supreme Court, andtheir experience at important positions in the judiciary.
For example, if most of successive appointees of position “A” graduated	 

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from “T” university, judges who graduated from T university have a career
resource that will aid them in being appointed to position A. Similarly, if
successive appointees of position C often go on to ascend to position D, which isof higher status, position C can be determined to be useful as a career resourcefor attaining position D. If the career resources of successive appointees to eachposition of a senior judge position are added up, it would be possible to indicate
a tendency of successive appointees to each position with regard to career
resources.
The following two examples illustrate the theory. Most successive
appointees to the Chief Judge of the Tokyo District Court are graduates from theUniversity of Tokyo; therefore, to be a graduate of the University of Tokyo is a
useful career resource for a judge to become the Chief Judge of the Tokyo
District Court. All successive appointees to the Director of the Personnel Affairs
Bureau (PAB) of the General Secretariat have experience (kyokuduki andkacho) at the General Secretariat; therefore, to be appointed kyokuduki andkacho is an essential career resource if one wants to become the Director of thePAB.
Each specific career path that takes a judge to high-ranking administrative
positions will be derived in this analysis and, as a result, we can understand thedegree of importance of each administrative position. As an example, althoughboth are Presidents of High Courts, the trends in the career resources ofsuccessive appointees to the President of the Tokyo High Court and thePresident of the Takamatsu High Court differ greatly. This would seem toindicate that there is an important difference between the two positions.
In this book, this kind of investigation is applied to a total of 110 senior
positions; Justice of the Supreme Court (six positions reserved for career
judges), President of the High Court (eight positions), Secretary General of theHigh Court (eight positions), Executive of the General Secretariat of theSupreme Court (eight positions), Head of the Legal Training and ResearchInstitute (one position), Chief Judge of the District Court and Family Court (76positions), Director of the Civil Affairs Bureau at the Ministry of Justice (oneposition), and Counselor of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau (two positions
reserved for the assignment of judges). We investigate successive appointees to	 2	 each position and their career resources. By adding up their career
resources—position by position—we can determine the characteristics that eachpost possesses in the judiciary. Thus, it is possible to understand that personnel
management is institutionalized and that judges must always be conscious ofratings and career advancement paths.
3. Justice of the Supreme Court; Career Path
For a career judge to become a Justice of the Supreme Court, he or she
must have previously served as a President of the High Court. More specifically,
positions that are significant as the career resources for serving on the Supreme
Court are President of the Tokyo High Court and President of the Osaka High
Court. Furthermore, almost all career judges who have ascended to become aJustice of the Supreme Court have previously served as Chief Judges of DistrictCourts and/or Family Courts within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court andas Directors of the General Secretariat of the Supreme Court.
In addition, they have served in any of the following four important positions;
Secretary General of the General Secretariat, Head of the Legal Training andResearch Institute, Head of Law Clerks of the Supreme Court, or Director of Civil
Affairs Bureau at the Ministry of Justice. In short, the four ladders of successexist on the path to becoming a Justice of the Supreme Court.
In terms of their educational background, graduates of the University ofTokyo account for more than 75% of the former Justices of the Supreme Court.
4. President of the High Court; Career Path
By adding up the career resources of successive appointees to the positionof President of the High Court, it can be shown that judges who are eligible forthis position have served as General Secretariat of the Supreme Court(kyokuduki and/or kacho) or in administrative offices at the Ministry of Justice,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and so on (Hanken Koryu). In addition, experience
as a Chief Judge of the District Court or the Family Court is indispensable if ajudge wants to become a President of the High Court. Moreover, if thisexperience is not within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court, it is very weak
as a career resource for becoming President of the High Court. Approximately	 3	 

70% of judges who become Presidents of High Court have experience as aChief Judge within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court, and approximately
85% of judges who were promoted to President of the High Court are graduatesof the University of Tokyo or Kyoto University.
Among Presidents of the High Court, the position of President of the TokyoHigh Court is in a class of its own for the following reasons; (1) all successive
appointees to this position are graduates of the University of Tokyo or Kyoto
University; (2) almost all have served as kyokuduki and/or kacho at the General
Secretariat; and (3) thereafter, they have held the position of Director of theGeneral Secretariat or Head of the Legal Training and Research Institute. Thesekinds of career resources are seen as being crucial for attaining the position ofPresident of the Tokyo High Court.
Only 30% of those promoted to President of the Tokyo High Court have noexperience as Presidents of other High Courts before their promotion to Tokyo.
The remaining 70% already have experience as Presidents of other High Courts.
Therefore, it is important for judges aiming to attain the position of President ofthe Tokyo High Court to secure an appointment as President of any High Court
other than Tokyo. In contrast, all successive appointees to the Presidents of theHigh Courts of Sendai, Sapporo and Takamatsu are judges who have noexperience as a President of other High Courts. A hierarchy consisting of eight
positions for the Presidents of High Court can thus be inferred.
5. General Secretariat Executive; Career PathAll successive Secretary Generals of the General Secretariat haveexperience as a Director of the General Secretariat and as a Chief Judge of theDistrict Court or Family Court within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court. As
well, the position of Secretary General is a definite career resource for being
promoted to President of the High Court and/or Justice of the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, close to 90% of appointees to the Directorship of the General
Secretariat are graduates of the University of Tokyo or Kyoto University andhave experience as kyokuduki and/or kacho at the General Secretariat. In otherwords, Directors of the General Secretariat are almost entirely occupied byhomogeneous judicial officials. There are six Director positions at the General	 4	 Secretariat. Among them, the position most deserving of our attention is the
Director of the Personnel Affairs Bureau (PAB). All successive appointees to thisposition are graduates of the University of Tokyo or Kyoto University and have
served as kyokuduki and kacho at the General Secretariat. They are thus thebest and brightest of the judicial officials. After serving as Directors of PAB,
these judges almost certainly become either Chief Judge of the District Court orFamily Court within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court. Thereafter, they arepromoted to Secretary General or Head of the Legal Training and ResearchInstitute. In the end, they are all appointed to President of the High Court.
6. Chief Judges of the District Court and Family Court; Career Path
There are 76 Chief Judges of local courts and family courts in Japan. Thesecourts geographically come under the jurisdiction of eight High Courts. We
added up the career resources of all successive appointees to Chief Judge foreach jurisdiction. The result was that the position of the Chief Judge of theDistrict Court and Family Court within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court
was far superior to the same position within the other seven jurisdictions.
Approximately half of the successive appointees to the Chief Judge of theDistrict Court and Family Court within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court aregraduates of the University of Tokyo, and have served as kyokuduki and/or
kacho at the General Secretariat. These career resources are striking incomparison to the other seven High Court jurisdictions: Due to these career
resources, close to 30% of appointees to the Chief Judge of the District Court
and Family Court within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court are promoted tothe President of the High Court. The same is true of appointees to the Chief
Judge within the jurisdiction of the Osaka High Court. The position of Chief
Judge in jurisdictions other than the Tokyo and Osaka High Courts, however, are
not useful as career resources to achieve the position of a President of the HighCourt.
We also examined the characteristics of each Chief Judge. In particular,
Chief Judges of the Tokyo District Court, the Tokyo Family Court, and theYokohama District Court can be considered the “top three” Chief Judges interms of their career resources. We found that over 70% of the judges were	 5	 

graduates of the University of Tokyo or Kyoto University and had experience askyokuduki and/or kacho at the General Secretariat. Their homogeneity stands
out among successive appointees to Chief Judge of the District Courts andFamily Courts in all jurisdictions.
Furthermore, serving as Chief Judge of any of the top three would mean
direct promotion to President of the High Court. The next position to any of thetop three is surely that of the President of the High Court—any of the top threepositions is a definite career resource for becoming President of the High Court.
We performed the same investigation on other Chief Judge positions in District
Courts and Family Courts within the jurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court. We
found that Chief Judges of the District Courts of Saitama and Chiba are rated as
next highest after the top three Chief Judges. After Saitama and Chiba, the nextbest rated are Chief Judges of the District Courts of Mito, Utsunomiya, andMaebashi. The hierarchy for the Chief Judges of Family Courts is generally thesame as that for the Chief Judges of District Courts within the Tokyo jurisdiction.
The following characteristics were confirmed for Chief Judges of District
Courts and Family Courts within the jurisdictions of the other seven High Courts.
First, we found that the position of Chief Judge of a District Court that is locatedin a city where any High Court is located (position “S”) is superior to any otherChief Judge position within the jurisdiction of the High Court. This is becausemost of successive appointees to position S have experience as Chief Judges ofDistrict Courts and/or Family Courts, which are not located in a city where any
High Court is located. This is because there is an unwritten rule which states thatjudges appointed to position S must have served as Chief Judge in a position
other than S. Furthermore, excluding the position of Chief Judge of the Tokyo
District Court, which is the stronghold of the elite judicial officials, and theposition of Chief Judge of the Sapporo District Court, where personnel affairs arerelated to those in the jurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court, trial judges who havenot served at the General Secretariat occupy the remaining six position S posts.
Within the jurisdiction of each of these six High Courts, position S is regarded asa place of final promotion for trial judges.
Second, we can identify two main trends in the pattern of appointment toChief Judges of District Courts and Family Courts other than position S. One	 6	 

trend is as follows; judicial officials with experience at the General Secretariat
are appointed to the position to acquire a career resource as Chief Judge, andthereafter are promoted to a higher position. The other trend is that trial judges
who are on the verge of retirement are appointed in order to gain the prestige ofbeing a Chief Judge. The former tendency is stronger within the jurisdiction ofthe Sapporo High Court; and the latter is stronger within positions of Chief
Judges of Family Courts that are not located in a city where any High Court islocated.
In this way, although we use the same title—Chief Judge—for the top
position of both District Courts and Family Courts, the characteristics of each
Chief Judge differ greatly in terms of appointees’ career resources. This factreflects how each position is evaluated by the judiciary.
Judges are “established” (teichaku) at any of the eight High Court
jurisdictions less than 20 years after their first appointment. After teichaku, their
possibilities for change are limited within the established High Court jurisdiction.
Thereafter, some judges are appointed to the position of Chief Judge. Is there
any correlation between their established jurisdictions and the appointment ofChief Judges? We found that many judges established within the jurisdiction ofTokyo or Osaka High Court were appointed Chief Judges not only within thejurisdiction of Tokyo or Osaka but also within the jurisdictions of other High
Courts. In contrast, judges established within the jurisdictions of High Courts
other than Tokyo and Osaka have little chance of being appointed Chief Judge.
We can therefore identify a vertically integrated system at work in thepositions of Chief Judges of District Courts and Family Courts; those within thejurisdiction of the Tokyo High Court equal a “suzerain state;” those within thejurisdiction of the Osaka High Court equal a “quasi- suzerain state;” and thosewithin the jurisdictions of other High Courts equal a “colony.”In sum, there are two hierarchies governing the positions of Chief Judges ofDistrict Courts and Family Courts. At the national level, the hierarchy of ChiefJudges of eight High Court jurisdictions is a pyramid-like structure, with asuzerain state at the top, a quasi-suzerain state in the middle, and a colony atthe bottom. In each jurisdiction, position S is superior to that of other ChiefJudges. These hierarchies are likely reasonable from the perspective of the	 7	 judiciary. However, it is also true that these hierarchies lead judges to beconstantly aware of their promotion, which has an effect on their independence.
7. Being a Professional Judge
On what basis is the promotion of judges to senior positions in the judiciary
decided? Which definite factors influence this promotion, and can they bedefined using only the objective and quantifiable data of career resources? Thisbook tackles these findings.
It is clear that senior judges’ positions are hierarchical and that eachposition has its own characteristics. In other words, a bureaucratic, hierarchicalsystem is rigidly formed in personnel affairs concerning senior judges. A specificpattern of promotion is established, and this creates an incentive for judges to bepromoted to a higher position.
Althoughthissystemenablesthejudiciarytomanage

courtsbureaucratically, it also creates certain problems in terms of being a professional
Judge. We must construct a system of personnel management that does not
motivate judges to focus so much on their own career paths. Some scholars andformer judges have already made various proposals in this regard. We hope that
this book can also serve the cause in a positive way.	 	 

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