地方自治制度の問題点と地方自治法の抜本的改正の必要性

抄録

The local autonomy system in Japan is a system where no autonomy in exists the local governments, which is ironic and inappropriate for the term of "local autonomy." The principal cause lies in the Local Autonomy Act, which was enacted having been based up on Article 92 in Chapter 8 of the Japanese Constitution. A series of the provisions of the Local Autonomy Act prescribes that the central government is supreme and the constituent governments, which are simply agents of the central government, derive their authority from it. With the advent of Japan's aging society with fewer children, the roles of the local governments have been increased drastically. In order to respond to there kinds of social needs, the political parties, such as Liberal Democratic Party and Democratic Party have advocated "the Scheme for Power Delegation to the Local Governments" and "the Scheme for Regional Sovereignty" in recent years. This paper will describe the defects of the present local autonomy system from which the local governments have suffered for over half a century, and also advocate some vital reforms for the improvement of the local autonomy system with reference to these reform schemes, while introducing some crucial political rules and practices applied in American local governments as well as their power delegation devices in the American federal system, which may encourage efforts to revise and improve the Japanese Local Autonomy Act.