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6/25/2020 Details of 2017 (Gyo-Tsu) 47 | Judgments of the Supreme Court held in said constituencies as part of the Election pursuant to these provisions are also invalid. 2. The outline of the facts legally determined by the court of prior instance is as follows. (1) The House of Councillors Election Act (Act No. 11 of 1947) divided a total of 250 members of the House of Councillors into 100 nationally-elected members and 150 locally-elected members, and under said Act, nationally-elected members would be elected by nation-wide constituency consisting of all prefectures, whereas locally-elected members would be elected by prefecture-based constituency, according to the demarcation of constituencies and the number of members to be elected in each constituency as speciﬁed in the appended table of said Act. Corresponding to the fact that the Constitution stipulates that an election for half the members of the House of Councillors shall take place every three years, said Act adopted the policy of apportioning an even number of seats (amounting to not less than two) to each constituency, in consideration of holding elections for half the elected members of each constituency, and in fact apportioned an even number of seats (from two to eight) to each constituency in proportion to the population of the respective constituencies. The provisions on the apportionment of seats under the Public Oﬃces Election Act enacted in 1950 followed the abovementioned provisions on the apportionment of seats for members under the House of Councillors Election Act, without any changes. Thereafter, except for two seats additionally apportioned to the Okinawa Constituency, no changes had been made to said provisions on the apportionment of seats until the revision to the Public Oﬃces Election Act by Act No. 47 of 1994 (hereinafter referred to as the "1994 Revision"). By way of the revision to the Public Oﬃces Election Act by Act No. 81 of 1982 (hereinafter referred to as the "1982 Revision"), the 252 members of the House of Councillors were divided into 100 members to be elected by proportional representation, i.e. elected in proportion to the number of votes won by each political party or group under the proportional representation system, and 152 members to be elected by constituency, i.e. elected from prefecture-based constituencies under the constituency system. Members to be elected by constituency are identical to former locally-elected members, with a change of name only. Subsequently, through the revision to the Public Oﬃces Election Act by Act No. 118 of 2000 (hereinafter referred to as the "2000 Revision"), the total number of seats in the House of Councillors was reduced to 242, consisting of 96 members to be elected by proportional representation and 146 members to be elected by constituency. (2) At the time of the enactment of the House of Councillors Election Act, the maximum disparity between constituencies in terms of the population per member (hereinafter, when the "maximum disparity between constituencies" at the time of each legal revision is discussed, it refers to the maximum disparity in terms of the population as deﬁned here) was 1:2.62 (hereinafter all values indicating disparities are approximate ﬁgures). Said disparity continued to gradually expand due to population migration, and at the time of the ordinary election of members of the House of Councillors (such election is hereinafter simply referred to as an "ordinary election") held in 1992 (this election is hereinafter referred to as the "1992 Election"), the maximum disparity between constituencies in terms of the number of voters per member (hereinafter, when the "maximum disparity between constituencies" at the time of each election is discussed, it refers to the maximum disparity in terms of the number of voters) reached 1:6.59. Subsequently, as a result of the reapportionment of eight seats among seven constituencies through the 1994 Revision, the maximum disparity between constituencies on the basis of the population counted by the population census conducted in October 1990 was reduced to 1:4.81. During the period before and after the reduction of six seats in total in three constituencies under the 2000 Revision as well as the https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_en/detail?id=1534 3/24

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2017 (Gyo Tsu) 47 [Judgments concerning the constitutionality of the provisions on the apportionment of seats for members (to be elected by constituency) of the House of Councillors stipulated in Article 14 and Appended Table 3 of the Public Offices Election Act]

Judgment

Question Presented: Whether the electoral code system, in light of the migration from constituencies, should be declared unconstitutional?

Alleged Acts: The plaintiffs filed suit alleging that the apportionment scheme for Tokyo and Kanagawa are unconstitutional and invalid and the recent election utilizing that scheme should be declared invalid. When originally set for the constituency disparity had a maximum of 1:2.62. However, after migration throughout the nation, this gradually increased. At its highest in 1992, this disparity reached 1:6.59 and in 2007 went back down to 1:5.

Procedural history: In 1994, the court held that although there was grounds for a constitutional review if there was extreme parity, there was not sufficient evidence in the case before the court. Again in 2001, the court reached the same conclusion and further explained that the proper avenue for reform was through the legislative process not through the courts. The representation system then underwent revisions in the legislature.

Summary: The court determined that the 2015 revisions overcame the existence of the disparity between the constituencies. Further, the court determined that the revisions had additional correction mechanisms that would permit the constituencies that were not merged to make future changes to rectify the disparity. These revisions included merging the less-populated constituencies to reduce the disparity to 1:2.97 from the 1:5 level.

Conclusion: The voting parity by jurisdiction did not create inequality severe enough to be unconstitutional.

Legal Issue(s)

Voting Systems (Winner-take-all, proportional, etc.)

Region: Asia-Pacific

Country: Japan

Language of Decision

English

Court: Supreme Court

Election Type: General

Date of decision: Sep 17, 2017

Geolocation

Latitude: 35.73293063

Longitude: 139.7553762

: Geolocation

Primary Documents

2017 (Gyo-Tsu) 47 _ Judgments of the Supreme Court.pdf
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Election Judgments - IFES

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2017 (Gyo Tsu) 47 [Judgments concerning the constitutionality of the provisions on the apportionment of seats for members (to be elected by constituency) of the House of Councillors stipulated in Article 14 and Appended Table 3 of the Public Offices Election Act]

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