Politics of Judiciary : Preparatory Research

本研究项目试图为厘清日本司法的角色及其问题的基本研究框架做准备。大多数项目成员是政治学家，他们收集材料并验证其有效方法以供进一步审查。另一方面，法律科学家的参与鼓励他们了解法律分析的局限性以及法律解释政治含义的困难。政治学家们批评司法行政的官僚化倾向和政治腐败案件的不透明，认为日本的司法结构自宪法制定以来没有发生过变化。相反，法学家认为，最近的司法改革将带来结构性转变。他们认为，从明年5月开始实行塞班制，可能会对日本国民的法律意识产生影响。他们调查了它对法律程序的影响，并敦促需要重新分配法律专业人员的人力资源。尽管存在差异，该项目的所有参与者都同意，政治学家的分析方法对于评估司法改革的程度是不可或缺的。此外，通过他们对法律研究的反馈，政治和法律分析的结合不仅可以改善司法改革的总体调查，而且可以改善一般社会科学的一般学科。因此，在形成对该主题的共同认知和方法的同时，本项目必须继续进行实证研究。他们还关注政党政治相关的法律案件、官僚体制的司法改革、参与三权分立的司法以及法律制度的比较研究等主题。在这个项目期间，预计将出版关于这些主题的出版物。

This research project tries to prepare for basic framework of research to clarify the role of Japanese judiciary and its problem. Most of the project members are political scientists who assemble materials and verify their effective method for further scrutiny. Participation of legal scientists, on the other hand, encourages them to understand the limit of legal analysis as well as difficulty for legal interpretation of political implication.Political scientists criticize bureaucratic tendency in judicial administration and lack of transparency in court cases against political corruption assuming as if the Japanese judicial structure had not been changed since the formation of Constitution. In contrast, legal scientists consider that recent judiciary reform would bring a structural transformation. For example, they expect potential reverberations in the legal consciousness among Japanese people by the introduction of Saiban-in system from next May. They investigate its influence on legal proceedings and urge the need for the new design to redistribute human resources of legal professionals. In spite of differences, all the participants of this project agreed that the analytical method of political scientists was indispensable to assess the degree of judicial reform. Moreover, through their feedback to legal studies, the combination of both political and legal analysis could improve not only the total survey of judicial reform but also the general discipline of social sciences in general.Thus, while developing the common perception and method for the subject, the project must continue empirical researches. They are concerned also with the subjects such as legal cases related to party politics, judicial reform in bureaucracy, participation to judiciary in the division of the three powers, and comparative studies of legal system. During this project the publications on the subjects would be expected.