午夜剧场

Currently, there are over 2,000 effective laws in Japan (the e-Gov Law Search lists 2,078). However, among them, there is no single law named "Administrative Law." This can be considered a characteristic that distinguishes it from other legal fields such as "Constitutional Law," "Civil Law," or "Criminal Law." The buildings we use daily, such as our homes and schools, are constructed in accordance with the regulations of the Building Standards Act and the City Planning Act, and the infrastructure and public transportation we use for work or leisure involve various laws such as the Road Traffic Act.

One of the roles of administrative legal studies is to systematically examine the groups of regulations concerning administration—which are interconnected like a forest—from a legal perspective. Therefore, when conducting research, there are relatively many instances where one engages not only with interpretive theory but also with legislative and policy theory. This can also be seen in the fact that "Die Verwaltung," a representative academic journal for administrative law in Germany, covers both administrative law and administrative science.

From the spring to summer of 2019, I stayed in Germany, the theoretical origin of Japanese administrative law, as a visiting researcher. I still remember the discussions I had with local professors and researchers at that time. As it was the transition year from the Heisei to the Reiwa era, I was struck by the high level of interest in Japan's legal system and history.

"Why has a democratic legal system born in Europe developed to this extent in a distant country like Japan on the other side of the world?" I clearly remember being asked this by one of the young German researchers. I explained in my own way (though perhaps not perfectly precise) that it was the result of the existence of a legal system since the Ritsuryo period, as well as the enthusiasm and actions of our predecessors from the late Edo period to the Meiji era. This question, I believe, made me realize something important about researching the law.

In parallel with researching literature and materials, over the past two years, I have had more opportunities to conduct remote Q&A sessions with civil servants in distant local governments and university researchers. The trend of the spread of online meetings has expanded dialogue. On the other hand, I feel I have also rediscovered the importance of face-to-face interaction. In Hideo Kobayashi's essay "On Thinking," there is a passage that says, "The future is about desiring and choosing." Utilizing the precious experiences of this period of transformation, I hope that administrative law mechanisms and theories that will be useful to the next generation will come to fruition.