Legal Logic and Framework of Administrative Reform by Restructuring Public Finance System

本研究课题的目的是通过对财政体制的重组，找出能够合法地实施具体的行政改革的法律的（宪法的）逻辑。这是20世纪80年代以来日本独特的新自由主义行政改革，由于该项目的主要审查法规已被废除并最终暂停，因此，另两项最近但相关的改革被取代，以进行实质性的研究。其中之一是创建日本版的英国下一步机构。它们被称为“独立的行政实体”，其目的是将一些行政单位/机构与典型的规划和指挥部门分开，这些部门可以行使国家的权威权力。另一种是地方政府改革，将大量的行政职能从中央政府转移到地方政府，而不提供必要的财政资源。本研究认为，这两项改革的动机都是为了将570万亿日元的负担转嫁给公共产品和服务的市民使用者和地方政府，这是中央政府不可避免的财政改革。在这些改革中，民主/问责制、效率和公平最终被忽视和减损，这可能在适当的时候使它们违宪。

This research project has been conducted to find out the legal(constitutional)logic to impose legitimately specific administrative reforms by means of restructuring public finance system. This is the very unique Japanese style of neo-liberalism administrative reform since 1980s.As the very statute that had to be examined mainly for this project has been repealed and finally suspended, two other recent but related reforms were taken up instead to carry out the substantial part of the research. One of them is the creation of the Japanese version of the British next step agency. They are called "independent administrative entities" and it is intended to separate some executive administrative units/agencies from the typically characterized planning and commanding sections that can exercise the authoritative powers of the state. The other is the local government reform to transfer huge amount of executive functions from the national government to local governments without providing necessary financial resources. Both reforms are, so this research concludes, motivated solely by the unavoidable public finance reform of the national government to shift the burden of 570 trillion yen to the citizen users of public goods and services and the local governments. In these reforms, democracy/accountability, efficiency and fairness, are eventually disregarded and derogated, which may in due course render them unconstitutional.