Under the Local Autonomy Law, residents can file a lawsuit to compel their local or prefectural government to seek compensation from one of its officials — in many cases the governor or mayor — for making an illegal payment out of public coffers or improperly disposing of public property. The national government has submitted to the Diet an amendment to the law that would allow municipal and prefectural assemblies to enact bylaws to place a cap on the amount of damages such officials would have to pay if a court determines that the illegal spending or property disposal was attributable to a minor error.
Behind the move is an argument that the possibility of having to pay enormous damages will make officials timid in carrying out projects requiring large sums of public money, potentially hampering the healthy development of local and prefectural administration. Over the issue of moving the Tsukiji wholesale market to the Toyosu area, for example, a group of Tokyo residents filed a suit in 2012 calling on the metropolitan government to demand that former Gov. Shintaro Ishihara cough up the ¥57.8 billion it paid under him to buy land for the new market, which the complainants say was contaminated with poisonous substances.
While the logic behind the amendment is understandable, government authorities should take care so that the proposed measure will not undermine the important function of residents' lawsuits against government officials: to deter improper behavior by officials in matters related to the spending of taxpayer money by providing for penalties.