My opinion of this week(420):

Derailment of moral and morale

A hundred and seven people died at the derailment and overthrow accident
happened at Amagasaki City. It was such a big and unbelievable accident
caused by JR West Japan. 

National Land and Transportation Ministry announced the policy not to
admit the resume of their operation until JR West Japan install ATS
(Automatic Train Stop System) at the line in which the accident happened.
It is a kind of stopgap measure not like any fundamental measure at all.
There are several possible reasons and backgrounds for the accident but
the one most important one is the lack of moral and morale of people
who are engaged in operation of trains. 

According to TV news, there rode two crewmen of JR West Japan in the 
train which had encountered the accident. While  many residents
in that area made  various rescue efforts , those two crewmen  left
from the spot without making any contribution for rescue works. 

People were further amazed with more astonishing fact since then.
About 20 crewmen at Tenouji workstation nearby to  Amagasaki enjoyed
playing bowling game contest and went out for dinner and drink in 
the same night while the rescue works were going on. Some of them knew
what had happened at Amagasaki, of course. While many of world media
were reporting this tremendous accident, those people enjoyed 
drinking and eating in the same night. What a terrible sense of moral
they have!

The cause of the accident is not the lack of ATS and/or other safety
system but the lack of moral and morale of people working in this
train company as far as we understand. Any safety systems will
not work well without ordinal sense of moral and morale of people
who engaged in the operation.  

We hear many near-miss case of operations at air plane cockpits
and an airport control tower. Any of those miss operation might 
have caused another serious accidents.   

In order to protect another serious accident,  we should never 
forget the fact that existence of right and good moral and morale 
of people are the primary concern rather than any hardware safety 
system. 

2005/5/7
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(421):

Introduction of citizen participation system

There are several public opinion surveys on the new Citizen Judge System
which will be introduced in 2009. In most of public opinion survey made
on such system  reveal that almost 70% of people have some great concern
about introducing such system. They don't want to be selected as a judge
first of all. They have some great doubt about their capacity which they
have about how much they can make a fair and right judgement in along 
with other professional judges in any criminal cases.

What's more, people to be selected may be very busy working for their 
lives. Why are they sacrificed their works for such kind of difficult 
task? It is natural for people to have such questions and concerns about
it.

I have the same doubt and concern myself so far. But my idea has changed
to a great extent since I saw various news reports and shows about it in 
these days. Masatoshi Nakamura, TV dorama players who plays a chief judge
in PR dorama made by Ministry of Justice, appealed to those public judges 
selected for the case in dorama ; "Indifference is the worst crime."

That is right. There are many reasons why the Ministry decided to 
introduce such citizen judge system in this country. One is that they
try to enhance the interest of people for court judgements. Secondly
they expect that they can reflect the sense of general public on any 
judgement in court trials. I personally agree with those two points.
Any courts judgements are now made by all professional people such as 
judges, prosecutors and lawyers working for respondents.

But it is necessary to keep justness and fairness in any court judgments
by introducing views of general public  to some extent in addition to
professional point of views. I believe that the idea itself is quite
right.

Another idea have come up into mind since I began to think about this 
citzen judge  sysytem.  I think it good idea to  introduce the same kind
of citizen participation system to national and local parliaments. In 
addition to those elected by votes, it may be good idea to add several
number of citizen members to be selected at randam. 

The purpose of doing this is just same as citizen judges system. Why 
can any local prliaments  start such trial to start with? I believe
that even a national diet can do the same trial in some way which will
improve indiffierence of people for  politics to great extent.

Do you think it just a silly idea?

2005/5/14
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(422):

Corporate Governance

A number of scandals by business firms are reported everyday. Cheat 
appropriation of public fund by the president of Ikari Sauce Co. and by
a NHK staff member are two examples  in this week. Many window dressings
have been made  by Seibu Railway Co. and Kanebo Co. for many years. 
Chairman Tutumi of Kokudo Keikaku Co admitted his commitment for the case. 

I wonder why Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan continue 
to assist Kanebo even after the scandal by Kanebo had been revealed. 
Why don't they stop it immediately?

Whenever any of such scandals take place, presidents and  other top 
directors of firms appear at press conference and apologize for what
happened bowing to press people in front. They make stereotyped general
statements in such occasion: " We are very sorry for this case. We will
try to make best effort not to repeat the same mistake by reviewing 
internal and external audit system."

We scarcely see any of corporate auditors in such press conference while
major attendants are presidents or other top directors of the corporation.
Nobodies wonder why it is. 

Whenever any of such scandals happen, it is natural that the responsibility
of top management including chairmen, presidents, and any other directors
concerned are firstly questioned. But many of such illegal action have not
happened by chance but have been repeated for many years. All top leaders of
the firm including internal corporate auditors and accounting auditors 
know the fact by all means. It is definitely true with the case of Seibu
and Kanebo.

Internal corporate auditors must definitely take actions against it which
is their first responsibility settled by commercial code. They must point
out any of such illegal deed by directors and advice them to correct it.
If this had been done, there would be no such scandals.

Many of top directors has been punished in many of scandals in Japan. But
we scarcely hear some corporate auditors have been punished because of
their illegal treatment about the case. Their administrative authority and
responsibility is stated very clearly in commercial code.

Whenever any of such scandals happen, the necessity to strengthen the
system of corporate governance is often advocated. But any new addition
or corrective actions on commercial code are not necessary as far as I see
it.

All they have to do is to let corporate auditors do their jobs as 
the present commercial code describes it.

2005/5/21
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(423):

Tone deaf diplomacy: Which side is it?

The vice minister of China who was visiting Japan went home suddenly by
canceling the appointment to meet Prime Minister Koizumi. The announcement
was made by Chinese Government that a certain serious domestic issue had 
occurred in China. 

But later on, there was an unofficial report saying sudden return of Vice
Minister was instructed by Chinese Government because of a hot argument on
Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine between two secretary generals of ruling
parties of Japan, namely Takebe and Fuyushiba, and top officials of Chinese
Government. The Chinese Government took this action for they did not like
what Takebe insisted on Koizumi's visit to the shrine.

Why did those two secretary generals visited China when the relationship
of two countries are so delicate? Their visit started a fire again which
has been brought under control in a way. 

The Yasukuni Shrine has come back again as a serious diplomatic issue 
between Japan and China. Some mass media blamed impoliteness of China
for letting Vice Minister come back to home by canceling a formal
appointment with Prime Minister of Japan. Some say this is not allowed for
any reason. I certainly agree with it. But some other say the main reason
for what happened is the visit of Koizumi to Yasukuni Shrine. They insist
that Prime Minister is asked to stop visiting the Shrine at any rate.
Some further say that it symbolize naive and primitiveness of Japanese
diplomacy. I began to get angry when I read such kind of press comments.

It may be true that Japanese diplomacy is a kind of poor and naive. But I
believe there are some more important things to be followed first. That is
politeness and manner to be followed in a diplomacy. Is it a professional
diplomacy to hit others without having any of such minimum politeness
and manners? 

I am just surprised to see many of such bad manners and impoliteness of
Chinese Government which showed in the recent happenings such as anti
Japan demonstrations and sudden cancellation of official meeting by
Vice Minister. There are no such bad manners at all as far as those of
Japanese Government are concerned.

Japan should listen carefully and sincerely to what China says on Yasukuni
Shrine. It is one very important diplomatic issue right now. It seems
that Japan is showing that stance for sure. In spite of this, why is China
so impolite taking that kind of stance in anti Japan demonstration cases
and the happening at this time? What is their sense of diplomacy?

Japanese diplomacy may not be so professional as many critics say. When
we liken it to a piano play, the rhythm and the tempo may not be quite
right. But pitch of sound of Japanese piano is quite exact. On the other
hand, the pitch of sound played by China seems to be out of control. 
The sound is too rude to listen.

Tone deaf is China not Japan.  

2005/5/28
Tadashi HAYASE