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

基于当地居民和地方政府之间的关系逐渐变得不那么合作、更有争议的假设，我研究了公民监察员的活动，特别是那些与法院和其他对抗性法律机构有关的活动。在研究方法上，我采用了对公民监察员和地方政府官员的深度访谈和对定量数据的统计分析。本研究的结果如下：(1)公民监察员活动在全国范围内的活跃始于20世纪90年代中期。这一时期组织了大多数公民申诉专员小组。(2)这种全国性的活跃主要是由于自1980年代以来一直从事公民监察员活动的人们的努力。为了检查所有地方政府是否遵守了法律规定并适当地使用了其收入，他们希望在全国各地建立公民监察员小组并使其联网。他们的努力取得了成功。(3)由于公民司法特派员活动在全国范围内的活跃，自20世纪90年代中期以来，针对地方政府的法律诉讼急剧增加。这些活动包括要求公开政府文件的诉讼、要求对地方自治团体的支出合理性进行审计的诉讼、纳税人的诉讼等。(4)公民监察员活动在全国范围内的活跃也导致了与对地方政府采取法律行动有关的法律知识和技术向全国许多非专业人士传播。(5)公民监察员活动在全国范围内的活跃及其成效在一定程度上得到了地方政府官员的认可。因此，他们现在认为他们对当地居民负责，因此必须真诚地向当地居民解释他们活动的合法性和适当性。

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.