Legal Discussions on Maintaining the Appropriateness of Regulations : Focusing on Mandatory Closure Days for Large Retail Store

This paper explores the concept of evaluating the appropriateness of regulations, which means assessing whether they effectively achieve their goals while adapting to societal changes. We can consider regulatory appropriateness in two main phases: when regulations are first introduced and when they are implemented. At the introduction stage, tools like regulatory impact assessments help ensure that regulations are suitable. During the implementation stage, regular reviews are crucial to keep them relevant. One way to achieve this is by using sunset clauses, which either terminate a regulation after a certain period or require it to be reviewed. It is important to involve a diverse group of stakeholders in these reviews to prevent any single group from having too much influence. Policies for large retail stores initially aimed to support their growth, but as these stores expanded, new regulations were introduced to address challenges faced by small businesses, such as limits on operating hours and mandatory closure days. Although the Distribution Industry Development Act includes sunset provisions for the registration of large retail stores, it lacks such clauses for rules affecting how these stores operate, which significantly impact our lives. This paper suggests adding sunset clauses for mandatory closure rules so they can be regularly reviewed and improved. Alternatively, allowing local governments more flexibility in setting closure days could make these rules more adaptable.