International Aspects of Local Communities : Legal Analysis

迄今为止，日本的地方社区制度都假定其居民在法律上和种族上都是日本人。外国人不仅在国家选举中没有投票权，而且在地方选举中也没有投票权。他们无权受雇为教师或地方社区官员。地方政府没有提供任何适合外国居民特殊需求的服务。总之，外国人不被视为居民。近年来，越来越多的外国人来到日本居住，并采取了许多措施，将他们视为当地社区的平等成员。从日本人的角度来看，这一进步应该受到欢迎。我们认为，地方政府在考虑外国人的特殊需求时，也必须考虑到老年人、婴幼儿、女性、残疾人等日本社会的少数民族的需求，这是本课题的基本观点。首先，我们调查了地方政府在接待外国人方面采取的措施，分析了这些措施背后的政策和基本思想。其结果是，很大一部分地方政府欢迎外国人，但作为游客和激励当地社区的活力。在此基础上，分析了外国人在教育、劳动、医疗、福利等方面的地位。其结果是，由于20世纪80年代的新立法，在各个领域实现了法律上的平等待遇，但由于缺乏实际条件，真正的平等尚未实现。地方选举投票权和公职人员被录用权的剥夺似乎是实现日侨共同体的决定性障碍。

Japanese systems of local community hitherto presupposed that its inhabitants were all Japanese, both legally and ethnically. Foreigners have no right to vote in not only national but also local elections. They have no right to be employed as teachers or officers of local communities. Local governments have not provided any services appropriate to the specific needs of foreign inhabitants.In short foreigners have not been considered inhabitants.In recent time increasing number of foreigners came to live in Japan, and lots of measures were taken to treat them as equal members of local communities. This progress should be welcomed from the viewpoint of Japanese. Because local governments which take the specific needs of foreign inhabitants into consideration must, we think, take into consideration those of Japanese social minorities, for example, aged, infants, females, disabled and so on. This is the basic standpoint of our project.We, at first, investigated the measures which local governments had taken in receiving foreigners and analyzed the policies and basic ideas behind them. The result is that huge portion of local governments welcome foreigners, but as visitors and as incentives for the vitalization of local communities. The policy is very rare to accept foreigners as equal citizens and to made local government good for social minorities including foreigners.Then we analyzed the status of foreigners in the spheres of education, labor, medicine, welfare and others. The result is that equal treatment in law was attained in various spheres as the result of new legislations in 1980s, but that true equality is not yet realized in default of factual conditions. Refusal of the right to vote in local election and the right to be employed for public officers seem to be the decisive impediments in realizing Japanese-foreign co-living communities.