THE ADVERSARIALIZATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LOCAL RESIDENTS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND THE PROSPECT OF THE LEGALIZATION OF THE JAPANESE SOCIETY

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Based on the assumption that the relationship between local residents and local governments has gradually become less cooperative and more contentious, I examined the activities of citizen ombudsmen, especially those related to courts and other adversarial legal institutions. As for the research methods, I used both in-depth intervie w with citizen ombudsmen and officials of local governments and statistical analyses of quantitative data. The findings of this research are as follows. (1) The nation wide vitalization of the activities of citizen ombudsmen occurred in the mid 1990s. Most groups of citizen ombudsmen were organized in this period. (2) This nationwide vitalization was mainly due to the efforts of those who had been engaged in the activities of citizen ombudsmen since the 1980s. In order to examine whether all local governments had complied with legal mandates and used their revenue appropriately, they wanted to establish groups of citizen ombudsmen all over the country and to network them. Their efforts were successful. (3) As a result of the nationwide vitalization of the activities of citizen ombudsmen, legal actions brought against local governments have dramatically increased since the mid 1990s. Those activities include lawsuits seeking the unveiling of governmental documents, claims for auditing the appropriateness of the expenditure of local governments, and taxpayers' suits. (4) The nationwide vitalization of the activities of citizen ombudsmen also resulted in the diffusion of legal knowledge and technique related to legal actions against local governments to many lay people throughout the country. (5) the nationwide vitalization of the activities of citizen ombudsmen and its results are recognized by officials of local governments to some degree. As a result, they now think that they are accountable to local residents and hence have to sincerely explain the legality and appropriateness of their activities to local residents.