POINT OF VIEW/ Kenta Inagaki: Ignoring legal reforms limits true 'rule of law'

The government appears to be wavering in its reform plans to increase the number of people who pass the bar exam to 3,000 a year by 2010.

The main reasons cited for this change of heart are growing concerns about whether the move would reduce the "quality" of those who pass the bar exam and lead to a job crunch among lawyers.

I passed the previous bar exam in 2005, when the number of passers was raised to about 1,500. So I suppose I may be an example of one of those passers of "declining quality."

First, let me state that the public, not the government, should decide whether quality has really declined among those practicing in the legal profession. It is the public that relies on the legal system.

One reason the plan to increase the number of bar exam passers is being reviewed is that more people have failed the Legal Training and Research Institute's graduation exam.

Be that as it may, can the true quality of legal professionals be gauged by examinations alone? I believe problems that lawyers face in the real world are outside the realm of exams.

People who think of lawyers as "products" manufactured and guaranteed by the state should give up such ideas.

Of course, a good lawyer must have legal knowledge and skills, and that is why we have law schools. Many students are studying hard at law schools, which every year turn out a crop of competent would-be lawyers.

However, when those eager graduates are deprived of the chance to fully develop their potential, society loses. It is up to the public to decide whether they are full-fledged lawyers. For that, they must practice law.

Furthermore, we must not forget that the objective behind adding to the number of practicing lawyers is to have "the rule of law" take stronger root in our society.

Unfortunately, as things stand today in Japan, "the rule of law" is in name only. For example, our educational system does not teach the full meaning of "the rule of law" and "constitutionalism," in which the Constitution aims to restrict abuse of public authority.

As a result, I doubt Japanese people really understand the Constitution's purpose.

The scarcity of lawyers and the closed nature of the legal profession contribute to this situation. Properly speaking, every citizen should be able to avail themselves of the "law." Despite this truism, the "law" in Japan has traditionally been monopolized by specialists and treated as something too difficult for laypersons to understand.

However, as part of judicial reform, the citizen judge system, a landmark change in criminal justice, begins next year. In effect, the judicial system will be opened to the public for the first time.

The citizen judge system will change all citizens' awareness of the legal world. Lawyers will also be forced to emerge from their narrow roles and rethink their actions.

I majored in political science in university, but chose to enter the legal profession in hopes of pursuing reforms. I think that while increasing the number of lawyers may cause some to face difficulties landing jobs, society will gain in the long run as the "rule of law" spreads steadily into every corner of life.

Amid globalization and widening income gaps, our society will become increasingly diversified. Unless we admit more lawyers with diverse specialties to the bar and rely on their wisdom, we will have no way to solve the new problems that will arise.

A true "rule of law" has yet to take shape. Any anti-reform argument that ignores the philosophy behind such reforms runs counter to the way society is inexorably changing.

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The author is a legal trainee.(IHT/Asahi: May 2,2008)