(1) Both the social security system and the fundamental right to work which find their basic idea in Art. 25 of the Constitution of Japan aim at realizing its spirit in the real life of the people. Accordingly, both are classified as so-called social law, which has its guiding principle in the idea of one's right to live.
(2) The first introduction of the idea of right to live into the present body of law was motivated by the approval of the right of workers to organize and to act collectively. But the purpose of the labour law based on the right to organize is to guarantee lavourers' livelihood through the mutual cooperation of labour and management.
(3) Social insurance aimed to expand the sphere of guarantee in lavours' right to live beyond what was provided by the Labour Law, and developed the principle that the whole capitalistic society is responsible for the security of the people's livelihood. Social insurance which originally formed a link in the chain of labourer-protection laws has gradually been absorbed into an independent system called social security.
(4) The social security system aims to guarantee the livelihood of the exploited people, namely, the poor class in the capitalistic society, such as labourers, peasantry, fishermen, artisans, minor industrialists, etc.
The proper recipients of social security should be determined according to the actual social status of the poor class; especially the determination must reflect clearly the nature of the opposing powers in the society which has necessitated the raison d'être of the right of social security.
(5) The power promoting the social security system is the labourmovement backed up by the labouring mass. In our country, however, the social consciousness of the right to live is still low because the post-war labour unions have been organized according to each unit of enterprise, and the working conditions and various welfare facilities are determined and operated by each enterprise separately. The absense of a tradition in our country of an independent mutual benefit association system of labourer has also held back social security. The development of the social security system in the future depends upon the efforts to overcome all these difficulties.

View full abstract

1. First I would like to deal primarily with the right of those who are in need of public assistance, because the expenditure on public assistance occupies a considerable amount of the total expenditure of the social security administration, and the judicial decision of the Supreme Court in the Asahi Case is just ahead.
2. How has the idea about the right claiming public assistance been considered.
a. The view of the Ministry of Health and Welfare is characterized by the fixed idea of right; the negation of right in the days of “the former Daily Life Security Act”, insistence of utility of financial investment under a declaratory right” in the days of “the new Daily Life Security Act”, and the emphasis of the right claiming performance of duty in the days of the curtailment of protection expenses.
b. The view of social welfare directors is characterized by an ideological understanding of right, low consciousness of labour right, lack of thorough thinking about actual conditions, and the necessity of democratization in an office.
c. The view of the needy (Zen-Sei-Ren) is characterized by its slogan “Give us security of livelihood. We claim a good job and the minimum wage for our living”. They began to think the relation between security of livelihood and labour rights.
3. What is the actual condition and claim of the needy?
The actual condition of no job workers and workers really able to work, and their claims; the establishment of maintenance-duty relation and its application to the household.
4. Right to live will be clarified in the process of campaign to win civil liberties, equal rights and labour rights. It is necessary to attach importance to right of freedom to express, equal rights against discrimination, right of freedom to choose his occupation, right of freedom to choose and change his residence, and right to work. Especially labour right is important, if the nucleus of human personality lies in labour. To consider wages as right is now of cardical necessity.
5. The present unstabilized condition of right claiming for public assistance and its solution.
If we consider the right to social security as a fruit of unified campaign against the exploitation of the capitalist class, the public assistance system should be considered from a viewpoint of “Constitution of Social Security” of the World Federation of Labour.

View full abstract

In applying the Daily Life Security Act in Japan, husband and wife are deemed to belong to the same household, even in case a spouse has been in hospital for a long period of time or the marital relation between the two is virtually dissolved. The idea that “husband and wife should share the last piece of bread with each other” compels one spouse to lead the minimum standard of living when the other spouse receives livelihood assistance. The results of this idea have caused many tragedies. By a detailed investigation of the treatment of husband and wife in the Daily Life Security Act, I developed a criticism against the presupposition that the mutual maintenance between husband and wife should be absolutely necessary to the relation between the two. I am of the opinion that the mutual maintenance of the married is also to be substituted for the support of the social security system.

View full abstract

A right, even if it is stipulated by statute, may remain only a nominal one. In order to enjoy his living right in actuality, he needs the real social power to enforce fulfillment of their duty under any circumstances by those who owe responsibility to perform a legal duty corresponding to that right. Now the so-called “Claim Campaign” aims at forcing those who owe a legal duty corresponding to the right to fulfil it, that is to say, to realize the right of the common people. Expressly, when the claim is directed to the ruling class, represented by the state and by capital, the campaign is strongly imbued with political andclass-conscious color.
An action has been brought by Mr. Shigeo Asahi, one of the recipients of livelihood assistance under the Daily Life Security Act, calling for a rise in the standard of assistance of the Act. This so-called “Asahi Case” is a typical case of the claim campaigns which have sought the realization of the fundamental human right to mainatin “the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living”, which is stipulated in Art. 25 of the Constitution of Japan.
This lawsiut has taught many lessons and has given satisfactory results. The teachings of this campaign are these:
1) a “right” can be realized only when a claim for its performance is powerfully advanced,
2) a “Claim Campaign” succeeds only when the campaign has support from the mass of the people and is prosecuted with class-consciousness,
3) such a lawsuit can provoke in the labouring masses a sense of their right to lead a life worthy of man and succeed in encouraging them to develop a wide-range campaign, and
4) a court campaign can have unique significance in claiming the realization of a right.
The Asahi Case Campaign is one of the most remarkable cases of the process of class strife through which the abstract rights of people are taking concrete shape.

View full abstract

In England social legislation made great a progress through the Liberal Reform in the beginning of the 20th century. Especially, the most advanced state of progress was reached in the National Insurance Act of 1911. This reform however, did nat have as its direct object “the break-upof the Poor Laws”. Every measure for relief of the poor is still governed by the lesseligibility principle of 1834, and the enforcement of relie has been carried out under the jurisdiction of the Board of Guardians of parish union in each district. The aim of this thesis is to point out the process of establishing the Public Assistance Committee in county and county borough after the Board of Guardians was abolished by Mr. N. Chamberlain, who put into practice the Local Government Act of 1929. This writer has a special concern about the fact that relief of the poor caused by unemployment was the most urgent problem at that time.
On the other hand, the aggravated state of unemployment after World War I brought about a financial crisis for social insurance, especially unemployment insurance. In the process of development from the National Economy Act of 1931 to the Unemployment Act of 1934, the unemployment assitance was established. A new concept of assistance was born from the merger of ideas of public assistance and unemployment assistance. It means that the national minimum idea has general support in British Society.

View full abstract

It has been for a long time interpreted in the Poor Laws in Germany that the needy were protected as “a reflective right” which arises from the duty of a local self-governing body to protect them for the public welfare, and nothing more. In the Weimar Republic after World War I when the multitude were reduced to extreme poverty, however, the Public Assistance Act of 1924 contributed toa rise in the status of the needy in society. For example, it admitted the needy participation in the determination of the standards for protection of the needy and in judging complaints; but it did not go so far as to admit a claim for public assistance. On the contrary such participation of the needy was denied under the Nazi regime.
Considering the poor condition of the masses after World War II, and being influenced by the thought of democracy and fundamental human rights, the Bayern High Court of Administrative Litigation accepted a claim for public assistance for the first time in 1949, and the Federal Court of Administrative Litigation also approved it on the 24th of June, 1954. This meant that the claim for public assistance was ultimately admitted as a right. It was the Federal Public Assistance Act enacted in 1961 and enforced in 1962 that incorporated the claim for public assistance into the statute.
This Act, however, fell still short of thorough guarantee of this right; for example, the protected were sometimes required to repay the livelihood assistance received until then. Or again those who belonged to the same household with the protected were presumed to assist him, whether they were under an obligation to assist or not. Furthermore, the private welfare services were held to have the prominent position in helping the needy.
In addition, some generally accepted idea of looking down upon the public welfare service has been observed not only in the consciousness of the people in general, but also in the measures of public administration. Finally the protection criterion is still low. These are some of the problems to be solved hereafter. My primary concern in this thesis is to study the above-mentioned conditions in relation to their social background.

View full abstract