The Purpose of this study is to demonstrate the local autonomy in statutory interpretation, especially administrative statute on the basis of the constitutional guarantee of local autonomy, consequently to search the legal priority of local statutory interpretation over the central government, when there is a contradictory stipulation in administrative statutory interpretation.
In a country with codified law, statute law is of great importance as a main and dominant form of law. Because statutes are formulated in language, they have both need of interpretation and possibilities of diverse interpretation. It is more significant in administrative statute, because administrative statutes are characterized by indefinity of legal terms and heading for pubic interest in statutory interpretation.
The topic of statutory interpretation in administrative law has long been a major branch of legal practice as well as legal theory, these several interpretations in administrative statutes were actually construed as legal hot issues between the Administrative and the Court.
Nowadays, these possibilities of diverse interpretation in administrative statutes become an legal issue not only between the Administrative and the Court but also between the central government and the local government from the viewpoint of Local Autonomy.
It is traditional perception that the statutory interpretation of the central government has legal priority over that of the local government, when there is a contradictory stipulation in administrative statutory interpretation. But such traditional understanding has legal problem on the standpoint of the constitutional guarantee of local autonomy.
The local government has the right to dispose all affairs in local region on self-responsbility through the constitutional guarantee of Local Autonomy. As a result, Local Autonomy guaranteed by Constitution includes the autonomy of the local government in statutory interpretation, because autonomous statutory interpretation is a indispensable premise of autonomous adminstration.
Shortly concluded, the legal priority in statutory interpretation shall give to local government over the central government, when there is a contradictory stipulation mutually in administrative statutory interpretation. In the case of unjust or absurd result of statutory interpretation by the local government, the competence of illegality control is given to the judicature not the central government.
That is actualization of the true Constitutionalism in Local Autonomy.