| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,000,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥1,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000)
Fiscal Year 2002: ¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000)
|
|---|
| Research Abstract |
The purpose of this study is to found the theoretical bases of "Legal Ethics" as a subject taught in the newly established law school in Japan. The three year study focused on making clear what sort of ethos of its personnel was involved in running a respectful legal system. The main features of legal ethics education in the UK, France, Germany, the US, China as well as that of Japan were surveyed from this viewpoint. The framework for analysis put the French system, which emphasizes the legislature as the supreme and sole law making power in a legal system, on one extreme. On the other extreme is the American system, where the judiciary or the common law court is independent from the legislature, the rule of precedent and the power of judicial review are respected, as is the courts power to find the law. The other countries which were surveyed are situated somewhere in-between the two poles. The rules and principles of legal ethics are regarded as software which provides guidelines fo
… More
r running a good legal system manned by a trustworthy and respected judiciary.
The results from the surveys and analyses were used both in theory building and in practice. As for practical matters, based upon the findings, legal ethics was placed in the latter half of the 2 or 3 year curriculum of the Nagoya school of law. Secondly, as for the content of legal ethics education, with active participation from the members of the legal ethics study group of the Nagoya area that I preside, a textbook was edited and is now in press. Thirdly, concerning methods of teaching, again along with my study group and co-sponsorship by my home institution and the Japan Law Foundation, a symposium was held in the last year of the study providing a venue for the dissemination of our findings and discussion of the regulatory ideals of and problems in legal ethics education, as well as a proposal to found a national network for teachers of the subject.
As for theory ; based upon the view that the social function of the legal profession is to provide the public goods of legal security and service, a systematic situating of the main issues in lawyers' ethics was provided and the textbook was composed on this platform. Special emphasis was put on judicial ethics, which is very important in French and other civil law traditions. In Dec.2004, some of the findings in this field were presented to an enthusiastic audience at the Judges Academy in Trier, Germany. The emphasis of my talk w as on the point of having a good judicial ethics : it is to provide the public with just interpretations of the law. To support the thesis, I went into the presupposed theory of legal interpretation that claimed that there are no gaps in law, only in statutes. I am working to disseminate such findings within Japan. Less
|
