6/25/2020 Details of 1999 (Gyo-Tsu) 35 | Judgments of the Supreme Court system has been adopted for all 300 members elected from small constituencies. The breakdown is as follows; there are 7 prefectures which were allocated 3 seats instead of the original 2 (Yamanashi, Fukui, Shimane, Tokushima, Kagawa, Kochi, Saga), 4 prefectures which were allocated 4 seats instead of 3 (Iwate, Yamagata, Nara, Oita), 3 prefectures which were allocated 5 seats instead of 4 (Mie, Kumamoto, Kagoshima), and 1 prefecture which was allocated 6 seats instead of 5 (Miyagi). It is extremely questionable to what extent this excess allocation is meaningful in reality as a measure against depopulation. (ii)It is clear from above that not all prefectures which benefited from the adoption of the 'plus one' system are depopulated areas, nor have all depopulated areas benefited from the system. Thus, Miyagi Prefecture with a population of 2,240,000 plus and Kumamoto Prefecture with 1,840,000 have benefited from the system, while Toyama, Ishikawa, Wakayama, Tottori, Miyazaki prefectures with a population of less than 1.2 million failed to benefit. (iii)If the system should be effective as a measure against depopulation, there has to be a situation in which by adopting the 'maximum remainder' system, there are prefectures which cannot be allocated even a single seat. However, as far as the result of the Census of October 1990 is applied, even Tottori Prefecture, which has the smallest numbers of population, still gets 2 seats by adopting the 'maximum remainder' system. Therefore, the 'plus one' system which served as a basis for the provision on the demarcation of constituency boundaries in question in the present case has nothing to do with measures against depopulation. 4. Conclusion It is well known that there are advantages in adopting the small constituency system and one of them is that the discrepancy in the allocation of seats can be dissolved. The primary characteristic of the small constituency system is that it is sufficient to focus solely on the demarcation of the constituency boundary, it is flexible, and hence, contributes to the dissolution of the problem of discrepancy in the number of seats. Therefore, the requirement of strict observance of the limit of 1:2 should be even higher under the small constituency system than in the case of the medium constituency system. If this is the case, although the maximum discrepancy between the constituencies based upon the provision on the demarcation of the constituency boundary was only slightly more than 1:2, there were more than 28 constituencies in which the discrepancy exceeded 1:2, according to the Census closest to the time of the amendment, and reached 60, according to the Census closest to the election in question in the present case. Since the sole ground for such a result was evidently the adoption of the 'plus one' system, and since the adoption of the 'plus one' system does not have any justification in the light of the Constitution and cannot be regarded as a reasonable exercise of discretion by the Diet, the provision on the demarcation of the constituency boundary in the present case should be regarded as being against the Constitution. In addition, since this state of unconstitutionality had existed from the time the Law was adopted, it goes without saying that there is no room to consider whether a 'reasonable period for rectification' has elapsed or not. However, taking into account that even if the election in those constituencies whose validity was contested in the present case were found to be null and void, this does not automatically mean that elections in other constituencies were null and void, and that as a result of the judgment which finds a particular election null and void, a situation which the Constitution had not presupposed would emerge, although temporarily, in the present case, it is appropriate to declare the election to be unlawful in the main body of the judgment, but refrain from annulling the election by applying the doctrine of discretionary judgment. The dissenting opinion of Justice FUKUDA Hiroshi on item iii 3 is as follows: 1 To a large extent, I share the views of justices KAWAI Shinichi, https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_en/detail?id=458 11/23