A Basic Study on Legislation by House Members: Focusing on the Issues and Prospects

Abstract

This paper aims to consider the current situations and issues related to legislation by House members in Japan, and presents future prospects of the legislation.  The Legislature in most countries is the government organ that governs through legislation public and civil activities.  Therefore, its main role is the drafting and deliberations of bills. However, since the 20th century, the role of the Legislature has become lessened as a result of the rise of welfare state theory. Consequently, especially in developed countries, a situation called “the administrative state” has appeared, and this has given rise to much room for “legislation by cabinet”, which means that the Executive has begun to perform legislation activities that the Legislature would normally perform. This situation would mean that not only does the Executive pre-dominate the Legislature, but also that the supervisory functions toward the Executive by the Legislature are no longer required. Therefore, in this paper, we survey, based on the theories of preceding studies and using Japan as an example, the actual situation of legislation by House members in Japan and consider the prospects of the development of Japan as a legislative state.