The 91st general meeting and a symposium were held at Seiwa University on Saturday, November 11, 1999. In the afternoon sessions of the symposium organized on the uniform theme, "Comprehensive Study of Administrative and Judicial Reforms, " three panelists presented their study reports on judicial reform, followed by two panelists who reported on their study of administrative reform and the session was concluded with a lively questions and answers period upon hearing these study reports. The symposium was cochaired by Mr.Hidehiko Kasahara(professor at Keio University)and me, Ono(professor at Daito Bunka University), and I chaired the session for judicial reform. Regarding the judicial reform, panelist Michihiko Yamaguchi from Nagoya Keizai University made a keynote speech on the theme, "A Concept and Task of Judicial Reform-Globalization and Market Economization of Justice"and as the conditions at issue in the discussion of judicial reform, he pointed out that the global deployment of multinational firms promoted globalization of a nation and a state transcending the norm of internal laws through WTO on the international level and stimulated relaxation of restrictions(lifting of controls)as a fundamental reform factor of legislative, judicial, administrative and educational systems on the national level and on the basis of understanding that the globalization through WTO, in particular, emasculated the internal judicial system, and even the constitutional system of each country, he maintained that the paradigm in the discussion of"Judicial Reform"which had become lively since last year was taken excessively in a narrow sense. Then, panelist Hidejiro Ishida from Kinki University made a speech on the subject of"Judicial Reform-Focusing on the Propriety of Introduction of the System for the Unification of the Legal Profession, " beginning with a question of why we need judicial reform, particularly, the unification of the legal profession now and giving a general explanation of the history of the argument on the unification of the legal profession, purpose and concept of the system and the direction of the reform and then posed a question as to the propriety and spelled out the directiveness for each of the connections with universities(the concept of a law school), judicial training system, judge training system, the jury system/trial participation system. Lastly, panelist Tamotsu Saegusa from Nagoya Gakuin University made a report on the theme, "Judicial Reform and Training and Education for the Legal Profession, " in connection with the training and education for the legal profession which is important as a human substructure of judicial reform. He stated that the expansion, diversification and internationalization of social functions of the judicial system at the present day brought about the diversification and multiplication of legal problems and disputes resulting in the increase not only of the number of lawsuits but also of the requirement for legal services out of court, that the small judicial system of our country was not capable to cope with such social conditions and therefore the increase of the legal profession population as a"judicial reform"was of urgent necessity and at the same time the increase of financial aid to the legal relief system from the state was also indispensable. For the foregoing study reports by three panelists, panelist Yamaguchi was questioned by panelist Kotaku Ishido(Chukyo University)about the former's indication that the paradigm in the discussion of judicial reform was taken excessively in a narrow sense and then by panelist Haruo Goto(Nihon University)about the present condition of WTO's dispute mediation system and its influence on the judicial reform. Panelist Ishida was quesioned by panelist Shozo Kobayashi(Meijo University)who maintained that the image of a

(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)