For municipalities as well as prefectures, the character as a perfect self governing body was strengthened by abolition of delegated functions, stipulation of involvement by law and establishment of a dispute processing system etc. Rather, municipalities were positioned as a subject which processes the office work in an area comprehensively as fundamental local authorities.

Moreover, municipalities have become the organizations who work independently based on the principle of self-determination and accountability under "the principle of subsidiarity. "For example, the coercive regulations for municipalities (Article 14 of Local Autonomy Law before revision 3, the 4th clause) were abolished. This regulation was that prefectures could establish required ordinances (the so-called "control ordinance") about the administration of municipalities and the ordinances of municipalities were invalid when they broke those of prefectures. So to speak, the rise of municipalities of "independence and a self-help type" will have big influence also on the role of prefectures which tended to stand on the role of a protector and a supervisor of municipalities conventionally.

The principle of "equality and cooperation" is applied not only to the relation between prefectures and the country but also to the relation between municipalities and prefectures. Abolition of the delegated function system was what changed the relation between prefectures and municipalities a lot rather.

Moreover, the appearance of the municipalities which strengthened the administrative and financial base by promotion of merger of municipalities in recent years has also affected the state of prefectures inevitably. According to the calculation by the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications based on the pattern of merger of municipalities which each prefecture created, in the minimum case, the prefecture where the number of municipalities within the prefecture becomes three is also just going to consist. In such a situation, the role of prefectures has been asked inevitably.

　

There are about 3,200 municipalities in our country, and those with a population less than of 5000 occupy about 20% of the whole, and those with a population less than of 10,000 occupy about 50% of the whole. In order to strengthen the administrative and financial base of municipalities, the government is promoting merger of municipalities vigorously based on the plan "setting the number of municipalities to 1000 after mergers" of the governing party. However, the possibility that small-scale municipalities will remain cannot be denied by the restrictions on geography etc. In this case, it is necessary to examine who bears the administration service to the residents in these municipalities, and how the state of small-scale municipalities should be and to perform a conclusion.

From such a viewpoint, the following arrangement about the argument related to small-scale municipalities is performed in the 27th Local Government System Research Council which was launched in November, Heisei 13 (2001) that determined "the state of a fundamental self-governing body."

　

Small-scale Municipalities

　

Office Processing in the Zone of Small-scale Municipalities

　

When prefectures perform a part of office processing in the zone of small-scale municipalities (when performing the so-called above-mentioned "perpendicular complement"), this will be added as a new role of prefectures. Since the know-how of processing the office work of municipalities does not exist in prefectures, there may be criticism that office processing becomes rather inefficient and the role assignment of prefectures and municipalities becomes ambiguous.

Speaking of the former criticism, since a local authority should improve residents' welfare, it could be efficient to process the office work by an office processing special case system(Article 252-2〜252-17-4 of the Local Autonomy Law) and an office commission system between local authorities(Article 252-14〜252-16 of the Local Autonomy Law), etc. Moreover, reexamining the role assignment itself should never be denied if residents need a prefecture as an administration service offer subject while it may be possible to regard such a role of prefectures as the so-called "complement office work" under the current law system.

Anyway, argument and examination about this point are performed from a broader standpoint in the 27th Local Government System Research Council and it is expected that a conclusion is obtained there.

　

The changes of a big city system are as follows. The Meiji era had 3 city special case movements of Tokyo-shi, Osaka-shi and Kyoto-shi. Then, the shift to the Tokyo metropolitan system was made in Syowa 18(1943) and the designated city system was founded through the special municipality movement of the 5 big cities (Osaka-shi, Kyoto-shi, Nagoya-shi, Yokohama-shi and Kobe-shi) after the Second World War. Moreover, the core city system was founded by Local Autonomy Law revision in Heisei 6(1994), and the special case city system was founded by the Local Autonomy Law revision in the Omnibus Decentralization Act in Heisei 11(1999). Thus, the big city system has been always closely related with the prefecture system.

Also, "the state of a big city" is now mentioned as one of the deliberation items in the 27th Local Government System Research Council, and the following matters are mentioned as the points of argument about the relation between big cities and prefectures by this board-of-inquiry special sectional meeting.

　

The Relation between Big Cities and Prefectures

　

All are very fundamental points of argument, and are the problems that may be directly linked with the state of the prefecture system related to the problem of a functional complement of the above-mentioned small-scale municipalities. Although this paper cannot but limit to the indication of some points of argument, they are the subjects which must be examined further based on broad argument in every direction.