Part 1
There is a significant difference between judicial practitioners and legal doctrines in the interpretation of laws. I have given an explanation of this difference and then evaluated the merits and demerits of legal education for trainees at the Judicial Research and Training Institute which emphasizes the distinguishing of legal facts from circumstancial facts in disputes.
In my view, this training is useful for developing the swift and efficient legal mind of a practitioner. On the other hand, because it relies mainly on the wording and structure of statutes, we must be careful of the tendency it may have to breed inflexible legal minds which would be detrimental to the development of law in this rapidly changing modern society.
Part 2
It should be noted that there are two factors influencing the interpretation of law by judges in contemporary Japan.
(1) The legal view maintained by the General Secretariat of the Supreme Court.
(2) Self-restraint from interfering in politically and/or socially hot issues.
Both of the above are by-products of the Japanese style career judge system.
We must also bear in mind the two different approaches of the judges to factfinding and application of law.
The first is abusive use of discretionary powers in fact-finding to facilitate the application of law and the second is to make his own interpretation of the law to suit the established facts. Most judges seem to prefer the former because it precludes the possibility of them being criticized by the higher courts and legal scholars.

抄録全体を表示