6/25/2020 Details of 1999 (Gyo-Tsu) 35 | Judgments of the Supreme Court constituency boundaries, which directly affect the interest of the members of the Diet. 8. For many years, the judiciary has allowed the emergence of the discrepancy (derogation from the equality principle) of a maximum of 1:3 for election of the members of the House of Representatives, and 1:6 for the election of the members of the House of Councillors who are elected from the constituencies on the basis of the broad discretionary power concerning the election system granted to the Diet, and also on grounds such as differences in raison d' etre of both houses. The majority opinion in the present case, following the judgment of 1998, also finds it unnecessary to change the framework of the judgment and the underlying ideas adopted by the previous judgments. However, the election systems for both houses have become very similar nowadays; the election for the members of the House of Representatives is conducted by the parallel system of small constituencies and proportional constituencies, and the election for the members of the House of Councillors is conducted by the parallel system of constituencies (small and medium) and proportional representation (in the election for the members of the House of Councillors, in constituencies, half of the members are re-elected every three years, so election in a constituency with two seats is conducted as an election of a small constituency with one seat; constituencies with more than two seats are medium constituencies). Under such circumstances, it is difficult to understand, why, in the first place, derogation from an important principle such as equality in the value of votes which the Constitution presupposes should be allowed. In addition, it is incomprehensible why the Diet continues to allow the differentiation between both houses in the extent of derogation from the equality principle, and thus makes the difference between both houses conspicuous. The notion that there should be a difference between both houses should not be realised by inequality in the value of votes. Moreover, the judiciary, on the one hand, has acknowledged that there are regional factors in relation to the members of the House of Councillors who were elected from the constituencies (the majority opinion in the 1998 Judgment is of the view that making a prefecture a constituency cannot be found to be unreasonable, since it is based upon the idea that prefectures have a unique significance and substance historically, politically, economically and socially can be regarded as a coherent political unit, and are intended to attribute a significance or function of intensively reflecting the opinion of the population which constitutes the prefectures). On the other hand, in the present case, in relation to the constituency-based election for the members of the House of Representatives, the majority opinion allows for regional factors which had been introduced in the form of the 'plus one' system (its unconstitutionality is perfectly clear in the dissenting opinion of justices KAWAI Shinichi, ENDO Mitsuo, MOTOHARA Toshifumi, and KAJITANI Gen and does not require to be repeated). However, in the first place, in the Constitution, there is no provision which allows the equality principle and the secrecy of the ballot to be manipulated by regional factors. Allowing the level of observance of the equality principle to be governed by regional factors in demarcating constituency boundaries is nothing less than closing one's eyes to the neglect of the equality principle. 9. There are arguments that our Constitution should be interpreted in line with the judgments accumulated by our judiciary and there is no need to refer to the experience of foreign countries. Naturally, such a view cannot be supported. Concepts such as 'representative democracy', 'rule of law' have developed on the basis of accumulated history and experience in various countries with a democratic regime. Our Constitution is also supported by such experiences. None of the countries which comprise the G7, which is a forum for countries with mature democracy is as tolerant as Japan in allowing derogation from the equality principle. The fact that of those countries, in US, UK, France and Germany, equality in the value of votes is respected is referred to in details in the supplementary dissenting opinion of https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_en/detail?id=458 15/23