Increasing the number of lawyers in Japan, the LDP moving Japan towards judicial review

Today was a holiday here in Japan.  It was the holiday I believe for those souls that are no longer with us, so essentially Halloween, in its true pagan sense.  I took the day easy, did a bit of shopping and went for a bike ride.  I came across the Omiya College of Law.

It got me thinking about the drive in Japan to increase the number of lawyers.


http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080318i1.html

Judicial reform is having a quick and dramatic impact on the legal profession, not least on the number of lawyers. In March 2002, the government decided to increase the number of those who pass the bar exam to 3,000 a year by 2010. Only 1,000 were passed in 1999.

Lawyers prosecutors and judges conduct a mock trial at the Tokyo District Court last June in preparation for the introduction of the "saiban-in" quasi-jury system next year. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO

As the Japan times article notes there has been an increase in the number of lawyers in Japan.  Along with the use of civilian juries there is obviously a movement towards the rule of law.  Why is that the case?  What is happening in Japan at this point in time that makes the rule of law, and increased use of the judiciary something attractive.

Following the legal scholar Ran Hirschl I believe that this change is in part motivated by political considerations, namely the challenges faced to the post war power the LDP.   While he is taking about Constitutional change the change in the legal system is similar.   In the last few years the structures that have essentially run Japan since the post war period have been challenged.

http://www.tulsalawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Hirschl.Final_.pdf

It was the reemergence of Quebec separatism that was in part the motivation behind the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the repatriation of the constitution.  Likewise in other societies, many constitutional changes have emerged as a result of social conflict.

If you ask the question, how have liberal social issues become effective in the last few decades in America you would have to look to the courts, judicial activism has been largely responsible for a good deal of progressive change.  By contrast, the political process was be relatively closed to progressive social change.  In Japan you have a very different social system.  There is a good deal of regulation and much less space for legal activism.  As he notes, in Japan judicial review has not been used so long as the LDP has been in power.

Likely part of the move towards an increase in the numbers of lawyers would be a lessening of regulation, and more leeway for parties to establish their rights through the legal process.

The relationship part 1

Relationships are complicated things. As Joe Rogan said on his Podcast, "some people are really fucking careful what relationships they get into".   And then there are people like me.  I won't say that I fall into relationships, but the fact is I absolutely do.  If I have a profile in my past, it's that I don't usually know the person I am going to date before a relatively short period of time before.  That short period of time can be really quite brief.

The benefit of getting to know someone before you start dating them is that you can establish if your compatible.  But, what makes people compatible.  Is it good conversation?  Is it similar activities and interests, or is it simply attraction? I would say for a lasting relationship it must be the first two, and that the last one simply grows on you.

But you meet all types during your experiences in this world, and you see all types when you watch films, or even read books.  That means that there is no template no one solution for all the different approaches to dating, or mating.

What do people look for in a partner? I think someone who has a passion for what they are doing is the most attractive quality.  If your doing something that don't really love than you can't be that happy.  Although people do things they don't like all the time.  It's best to be in the zone and be really into whatever your doing, and then the time will pass quickly.  You want the time to pass quickly when you are working, and slowly when you are with a loved one or on vacation.  In a sense you could say that the happiest person is the person who things pass smoothly and easily.   Isn't there something tragic about that.  Count no man happy who is still alive, for misfortune might soon befall him, I think that is from some Greek Tragedy.

Today I came to work.  It was extremely humid outside.  In fact it has been humid for the last few weeks.  The summers in Japan are like that.  I believe a number of the days were clocked at 39 degrees Celsius.  I'm drinking lots of liquids and trying to be in a room with air conditioning whenever possible.
Last night I went to bed rather late.  Actually, it was around 2:30 or later.  I feel kinda of trippy today, like I just didn't get enough sleep, so I'm a bit tired for this day.  On Saturday to Sunday I slept 1 to 12, so about 11 hours.
I went to the gym in Harjuku the other day, it was a lot of fun.  I love that caveman type basement they have at the Harjuku Gold's.  You got some nice black and white posters of Arnold and other Mister Universes.  Lot's of cavemen around doing savage lifting and exercise.
It would be nice to be in better shape.  I think my peak must have been in November and December.  I was just eating lots of high quality protein, and sushi. I lifted more than I have ever lifted before.  I was even doing almost 10 chin ups.
I've been thinking a lot about the different opportunities I can take advantage of.  It's clear there are heaps of opportunities out there but you need to really uncover them.  In these tough economic times you need to keep a positive mind frame and keep in touch with positive people around you.
I tried to email some people on the weekend.  Some of them replied others did not.  I am thinking of one person in particular.  Relationships are complicated, or maybe I'm complicated.

Emotions

I was listening to some really interesting lectures on the TVO podcast show Ideas today.

The first was by the political philosopher and linguist Chomsky.  He briefly described the crisis of Democracy that occurred during the 1960's.  Basically on both the liberal and conservative side there was a fear that what was happening in the US was an excess of democracy.  Therefore there were proposals to reduce the influence of the average person in the democratic process.  One such development has been the drastic reduction in funding to post secondary education

It is striking that in Mexico they have free education, or very low tuition.  Of course when the government tried to bring forward legislation increasing tuition student mobilized massively to fight against the proposals, just as occurred in Quebec.  The result was that tuition was not increased.  You can contrast this with what took place in the rest of Canada, and in the US where people passively accepted the decision to increase tuition fees and barrow huge amounts to finance education.




I also listened to a lecture by the Canadian Science Fiction writer Cory Doctrow, about attempts being made to prevent Computers and other mediums from infringing copyright laws, and how this is doomed to failure.   I rather enjoyed that lecture.  He proposed that instead of building within computers a program that prevents downloading or recording of data that infringes, you empower consumers to police themselves.  One good example he gives is of each person having a radio transmitter and this enabling the locating of people whose transmitters happen to be malfunctioning.  I was already persuaded that the current attempts to stop infringement are doomed to failure, and his lecture merely solidified that perspective.  He doesn't really get into the legal aspect much though, which is not surprising given his lack of a legal background.

But the contrast between a hammer and a rifle is quite a good one.  Computers have become all purpose tools so it simply makes little sense to try to make them so that they can't be used in certain ways.  

Finally I listened to this debate between a professor who thinks we don't need religion and the scared, and one who thinks we still do.  It was basically an argument about John Lennon's phrase in "Imagine", there is no heaven, it's easy if you try...." etc....


It got down to semantics at a certain point.  There were the creations of straw men to a certain extent.  If I were arguing the perspective of the anti-religious person, I would stress the free-thinking an investigative aspect.  How religion is organized by necessity into hierarchical systems almost exclusively.  It is of course possible to imagine religion without that but where can you find it?

I think that is the most powerful attack on religion.  But, I haven't read Daniel C. Dennet's book "The Good Delusion", although I did read the Hitchen's "God is not great".


There was a big bone of contention about chimps.  Are chimps good by nature or violent.  The religious guy made big hay of the idea that chimps were violent and therefore humans are naturally violent also, ergo religion is not responsible for violence.  But, this treats humans as simply natural creatures.  Thus we must see that even if humans are by nature this way surely they can be different through reason.  So the fact that humans are naturally violent doesn't really mean anything.

I would go after religion through the critique of metaphysics (Kant, Hume) and also through Darwin, evolution.  There are no transcendent mental states and therefore there is no knowledge of God outside of experience which is bounded by space and time.  Even the observer effect remains in the Kantian idealism which is not the kind of idealism of Bishop Berkley, but simply an idealism of human measuring.  The religious guy made hay of the observer effect in quantum physics, which in my mind doesn't really get you that far either. 

I also went to the gym and did some weight lifting.  I ended by advising the brother of Josh on his legal dispute with the city of Toronto.  I believe he may have a claim under the copyright act for the destruction of his work by the city, when they painted without warning over his mural.

Working out at Gold's Gym

I've just got a renewed membership at Gold's Gym here in Omiya.  From last Friday I stared going.  On Friday I did back, Saturday I went to Tokyo and did chest at the Shibuya location.  Sunday I took off, simply because when I showed up to the gym around 9 p.m. it was already closed.  On Monday I went and did legs, and yesterday I went and did my shoulders. 

The Leg workout was pretty crazy.  I must say that right now I'm really feeling it.  It has been awhile since I really worked out my legs that hard, and they are quite sore.
Exercising your leg muscles is extremely important of course, since they are much more primary to your locomotion than any upper body exercise.  I think also in terms of abs and weight loss they are absolutely crucial.

I've started to track my calories using a program that has a pretty good database of foods, even those found in Japan.  I am also recording all my workout on the exercise App for my iphone.

I can already see some fantastic results even after being back at Gold's for less than 1 week.  First, I am sleeping much much better.  The muscle fatigue means that despite any attempt to think and stay awake my body is simply naturally tired and therefore unable to do so.  The sleep is much more restful and complete than it would be otherwise.  There is no easy comparison between sleep from one period and sleep from another, this is especially true if you are comparing the experience of being asleep.  But, upon waking up you know very well the difference between having achieved REM sleep and not having achieved a significant amount of it.  That difference can be recorded in a app like sleepclock, which uses the iphone gyroscope to gauge when you enter and exit REM sleep.

I'm getting a handle on my diet as well.  Simply recording the food you eat can have a huge effect on what you put in your body.  Do you really want to write down that you ate X quantity of fried chicken or doughnuts? 

The next step is drinking enough water, which is itself aided by that diet app.  It has a nice graphical interface that records your water intake.  You want to make sure that it fills up, so it actually graphically represents the empty water glasses that you didn't fill, and there is no text, so you really get a nice visual effect of your water consumption.

USA CORPORATE LAW/POLITICS, regulating contributions through shareholder approval.

After "Citizens United" you had a situation where corporations can contribute unlimited sums to elect candidates that are favourable to their firms.  This has the potential to corrupt the political process in the USA.  One solution is to have the shareholders pass resolutions requiring 75% shareholder approval for any campaign funding.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/opinion/15bogle.html?src=rechp


This article argues for just such an approach.

I see a couple of problems.  Firstly, even though this is coming up in the case of Home Depot, it is unrealistic to believe that sufficient votes can be gathered to approve such resolutions in a majority of companies.  Moreover, insofar as the contributions can be said to improve the finances of the company by electing candidates who are favourable, it seems that that executives can legitimately claim that they are acting to benefit their corporations, and hence are protected by the business judgement rule.   Would shareholders want to handcuff management when it is apparent that funds might be usefully spent electing a pro business candidate?  To take a simple example.  Suppose that there are two candidates, one proposes increasing taxes on fuel, and the other does not.  If you are the CEO of an oil company you obviously have a duty to shareholders to oppose the candidate who is going to decrease your profits.  Most large shareholders will realize this and act accordingly.

In addition, this might suffer from the same problem with regard to executive pay.  It is rare that shareholders can successfully pass restrictions on executive pay despite there being almost universal benefits for doing so.


Having re-read the case I have to conclude that there has to be some merit to the decision.  For example, various media companies are linked to certain businesses.  A good example is General Electric owning NBC.  If they can use their media wing to promote policies that favor the company as a whole, I don't see why other businesses can't do the same.  It is worthwhile to keep in mind that prior to Citizens United those elected to both the Senate and the presidency favored big business over the average citizen. It is only in Congress that you have something approaching effective representation.  Therefore, I don't see this decision as making a huge difference in the grand scheme of things.  More importantly it is unfair for some companies to have influence through ownership of media to spend unlimited amounts, whereas others cannot.  It is additionally true that there is currently a breakdown between traditional media, and new media which uses the internet.  There is no longer a clear distinction between owners of media and users.

Ecological city: Tokyo

Despite the recent nuclear disaster, tsunami, and earthquakes, there is a lot to admire about Tokyo.  There are a number of incredibly ecological things about the city.  First, public transportation system.  Second, parks and green spaces.  Third, widespread use of bicycles.  Fourth, the housing.  Fifth, the eating habits of the Japanese.

The first thing that strikes many visitors to Japan is the excellent bus and subway systems.  You can easily catch a subway by walking in almost any direction.  There are numerous stops, both under ground and above ground.  Moreover, even once you leave the city proper and go into the countryside you still find many train stations ready to take you to the downtown core.  While the public transportation system is not cheap, it is also not that expensive.  You do not pay much more than you would in Canada, and trains are everywhere.  The time tables are adhered to quite well, so you can time your trip exactly.  You miss one train and the other one is there several minutes later. 

Despite there being a dearth of space, you can find beautiful parks in almost any section of Tokyo, or any smaller Japanese town.  The parks are well maintained and have nice flowering trees, and also often large lakes.  You can find many avian species, fish, and animals of all kinds using the facilities.  Children, the elderly, and couples of all ages also enjoy sitting in the parks.

Despite being a huge metropolis you have many people using bicycles from all walks of life.  If you go to any part of Tokyo and especially the downtown core you find piles upon piles of bicycles.  In short it is a widely used form of transportation.  Correspondingly it is well regarded by all city dwellers.  There is absolutely no stigma attached to using a bicycle.  You can ride on both the sidewalk and the street with very little fear of being hurt by motorists or scolded by pedestrians.  In fact, when you trying to bicycle by a person, it is often they who apologize for blocking your path.

Most people live in one room apartments, and even wealth families have small houses by comparison with North America.  However, this is a very beneficial situation as it requires far less heating and energy to live in one of these apartments.  In addition, since there is much less space for belongings there is less opportunity to amass large quantities of objects.  The small apartments and density of housing also works to make the public transportation routes that much more efficient.