[Blog]Changing the Rules Is Not the Problem—How They Are Changed Is: Institutional Trust in Japan's Immigration Policy

2026-08-06

Why Immigration Law Needs Temporal Consistency

Every legal system must evolve. When social conditions change or existing rules are no longer sufficient to achieve legitimate public objectives, governments have both the authority and the responsibility to revise their laws. Stricter immigration requirements, by themselves, are neither unusual nor inherently problematic.

However, a legal system cannot be judged solely by whether its current rules appear reasonable. It must also maintain consistency over time. The relationship between past policies, present implementation, and future expectations forms the foundation of legal certainty. If individuals organize their lives according to existing laws only to discover that the rules have fundamentally changed without sufficient explanation or transition, confidence in the legal system begins to erode.

This idea is reflected in several well-established legal principles, including legal stability, protection of legitimate expectations, legal certainty, non-retroactivity, and equality before the law. Although these principles are often discussed separately, they all recognize a common reality: people can only trust a legal system when they can reasonably predict how it will operate over time.

The Issue Is Not Stricter Immigration Policy

Recent reforms to Japan's Permanent Residence system and the Business Manager visa should therefore be examined from this perspective. The central question is not whether immigration policy should become stricter or more lenient. Rather, the question is whether policy changes themselves are implemented in a manner that preserves institutional trust.

Immigration administration inevitably involves administrative discretion. Every applicant presents different personal, economic, and family circumstances, making rigid mechanical decision-making impossible. Yet broader discretion does not justify reduced transparency. On the contrary, the greater the administrative discretion, the greater the need for clearly articulated standards, consistent application, and reasoned explanations. Discretion should be understood as a legally controlled decision-making authority—not as the absence of objective standards.

Permanent Residence as the Foundation of Long-Term Life Planning

Permanent Residence is far more than a visa with no expiration date. It forms the legal foundation upon which many foreign residents build their long-term lives in Japan, including employment, home ownership, business investment, family planning, children's education, and financial stability. Although Japanese immigration law grants the Minister of Justice broad discretion in deciding Permanent Residence applications, that discretion does not eliminate the need for predictability.

Japan's Immigration Services Agency publishes guidelines explaining factors such as lawful conduct, financial independence, fulfillment of public obligations, and duration of residence. Clarifying evaluation criteria is an important step toward transparency. Nevertheless, when new evaluation standards substantially alter previous administrative practice, applicants deserve clear explanations regarding the reasons for the changes, their intended scope, and how existing residents who have already organized their lives under the previous framework will be treated.

Stability After Permanent Residence Matters

Recent discussions concerning the status of Permanent Residents who fail to fulfill public obligations raise similar concerns. Addressing deliberate abuse of the system is undoubtedly a legitimate policy objective. At the same time, failure to meet tax or social insurance obligations may arise from illness, unemployment, business failure, or other complex circumstances. If individuals cannot reasonably predict which conduct may affect a status that was intended to provide long-term stability, confidence in the immigration system inevitably declines.

The Immigration Services Agency has emphasized that each case will be evaluated individually rather than resulting in automatic revocation. Such explanations are important. Nevertheless, institutional trust would be strengthened further if objective criteria regarding administrative discretion, mitigating circumstances, opportunities for correction, and proportionality were articulated more explicitly.

The Business Manager Visa and Abrupt Regulatory Change

The recent revision of the Business Manager visa requirements illustrates the importance of temporal consistency even more clearly. The revised standards significantly increased investment requirements while introducing additional expectations concerning business continuity, managerial experience, staffing, business planning, and Japanese language ability.

Preventing abuse by companies established solely for immigration purposes is a legitimate governmental objective. However, there is an important distinction between applying stricter standards to future applicants and imposing substantially different expectations upon individuals who have already invested capital, established businesses, signed commercial contracts, and built their lives based on the previous regulatory framework. Transitional arrangements are not merely administrative conveniences—they represent an essential component of protecting legitimate expectations.

Even where transitional measures exist, the fundamental question remains whether the government adequately protects investments and business decisions that were made in good faith under the previous rules. Small but genuine businesses that contribute to local economies should not necessarily be evaluated in the same manner as entities created solely to obtain immigration status.

Legislative Responsibility and Administrative Responsibility

Institutional trust depends upon both legislation and implementation. Legislators must clearly explain why existing rules no longer achieve their intended objectives, what evidence supports regulatory change, and why less restrictive alternatives would be insufficient. Administrative authorities must ensure transparent standards, consistent decision-making across regional offices, and understandable explanations whenever applications are denied or legal status is affected.

Particular caution is required when immigration practice changes primarily through administrative guidelines, documentary requirements, or internal operational standards rather than through formal legislation. Administrative flexibility may improve efficiency, but it also increases the risk that substantial policy changes occur without sufficient public debate or democratic scrutiny.

A Principle of Temporal Consistency in the Balanced Coexistence Model

The Balanced Coexistence Model neither advocates unrestricted immigration nor opposes stronger immigration control. Instead, it seeks to balance the legitimate interests of the receiving society—including public order, national security, and prevention of abuse—with the legitimate expectations of foreign residents who invest, work, establish families, and contribute to society under the existing legal framework.

At the center of this model lies institutional trust. Trust emerges when legal systems are understandable, predictable, and reliable over time. From this perspective, a new principle may be proposed: the Principle of Temporal Consistency in Institutional Change.

Under this principle, governments retain full authority to revise immigration policies in response to changing social conditions. However, such revisions should be implemented only through procedures that clearly explain their objectives, maintain continuity with previous legal frameworks whenever possible, respect legitimate expectations created under earlier policies, provide reasonable transitional arrangements, and ensure that future legal consequences remain reasonably predictable. Administrative discretion should therefore be constrained by transparency, consistency, accountability, and procedural fairness.

Strict Systems Must Also Be Trustworthy

Strict immigration policy and institutional trust are not mutually exclusive. A system with clear rules, consistent application, and effective enforcement can command strong public confidence. The real challenge arises when standards change rapidly, explanations remain insufficient, and conduct that was previously accepted is later evaluated under substantially different expectations.

The recent reforms concerning Permanent Residence and the Business Manager visa therefore raise a broader constitutional question that extends beyond immigration policy itself. They ask how a democratic state should modify legal institutions upon which individuals have already relied to organize their lives. Laws may evolve. Indeed, they often must. But if institutional trust is to survive, legal change must preserve continuity, provide transparent justification, and allow people to foresee the legal consequences of their decisions. Only then can immigration policy support both effective governance and genuine social coexistence.