Early each year, Law of the Land likes to reflect on what one of Japan's three branches of government did the previous one. This time we'll look at the surprisingly durable Shinzo Abe habitat known as the Cabinet.
First, lawyerly foreplay: definitions. What is the Cabinet?
A body with that name was first established in 1885, making it one of the oldest parts of the national government. It was not a constitutional body, however, until the postwar period — the Meiji Constitution of 1889 did not even mention the word.