Authority of the National and Local Governments under the Constitution

Abstract

Constitution came to include the principle of local autonomy in its provisions. Second, we will describe how those constitutional provisions regarding the local governments have developed in relation to the national government. These findings will show the centralization of national power and the erosion of local autonomy in postwar Japan. Third, we will describe how local governments today seem to cope with centralized national power. The focus of our discussion of national-local relationships will not be on the state of local autonomy that the Constitution anticipated at the time of its enactment. Instead, the discussion will deal with the state of local autonomy as it has evolved under the Constitution. Local autonomy under the current Constitution is based on the principle of civilian control, and this principle should never be compromised lest characteristics of local autonomy be changed. Otherwise, local identities based on the nature, the culture, and the mentalities of each district may be weakened or even lost. There always must be an adequate sharing of governing functions between the local and central governments. Today, however, the national government tends to manage even matters of local concern as national matters by delegating authority to the heads of the local communities through laws and government ordinances. In Japan this procedure is called agency delegation; however, local government should not be obliged to follow this procedure all the time. In the next section, this article will discuss the specific ways in which autonomy should be practiced.