Judicial Politics in Japanese Local Government Councils:

Case Studies on the Hita Satellite Lawsuit and the Kunitachi Landscape Lawsuit

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to clarify the decision making process of how local government councils cope with lawsuits. Although many researchers have maintained continuous interest in the process of how local government authorities (administrative executives) deal with lawsuit in their decision-making process, little study has been done to actually investigate the role and impacts of local government councils. Local government councils has voting rights on filing a lawsuits. The discussions of local government councilors can be classified into four frames according to the characteristics of discussion’s contents. (1) Offensive and defensive frame, (2) Monitoring frame, (3) Public opinion frame, and (4) Policy evaluation frame. Exploring two case studies in japan, it is suggested that for local government councils to enrich the debates concerning lawsuit decision making, more attention should be directed in further enhancing their policy evaluation abilities.