6/25/2020 Details of 1999 (Gyo-Tsu) 35 | Judgments of the Supreme Court it can be said that the demarcation of constituencies by the amended Law on Public Election was prepared in accordance with the two criteria mentioned above. The first criterion places significance on proportionality to the population number and requires that the ratio of the population numbers between constituencies should be less than 1:2, although administrative division, geography, transportation etc. are to be taken into account. The second criterion allocates one seat to each prefecture prior to the demarcation of the boundary, and then allocates the remaining seats to prefectures in proportion to the population number. Thus, the second criterion acknowledges an exception to proportionality to the population number and presupposes a certain level of imbalance in the allocation of seats as inevitable. Therefore, the first criterion is understood to require that within this framework, the constituency boundaries should be demarcated in such a way that the difference between the population numbers per constituency is below 1:2 nationwide if possible. Furthermore, concerning the candidates in the small constituency election, Art.86 of the amended Law on Public Election has adopted the system under which the political parties and other political organisations which fulfil one of the requirements as provided by the subparagraphs of paragraph 1 of this provision, present candidates who are their members, and in addition, those who intend to be a candidate. In addition, candidates may present themselves or their supporters may also present candidates. Those political parties or other political organisations which presented candidates (candidatepresenting political parties) may, in addition to the election campaign conducted by the candidates, conduct an election campaign on their own by using cars, loud speakers, documents and posters, and may arrange newspaper advertisements and political meetings (arts. 141, para.2, 142, para.2, 149, para.1, 161, para.1 etc., the amended Law on Public Election) and in addition, may broadcast political views, which is not permissible for the candidates themselves (Art.150, para.1, the amended Law on Public Election). The appellant argues that the small constituency system entails a large percentage of 'dead votes', is a multiple representation system, and is unconstitutional, since it is against the principle of people's representation, is likely to disregard the underlying ideas of articles 55, 57, para.1, 59, para.2 etc. of the Constitution, contradicts the principle of majority rule, and infringes upon the freedom to be a candidate, the freedom of election and the freedom of association as recognised by the Constitution. Furthermore, the appellant argues that as a result of allocating one seat to each prefecture in accordance with the criteria set by Article 3, paragraph 2 of the Law on the Law on the Establishment of the Constituency Council, the difference in the value of votes has exceeded 1:2. This is against the equality principle as provided by the Constitution, and therefore, the Provision on the Demarcation of Constituency Boundaries is null and void by virtue of its unconstitutionality. Moreover, the fact that the opportunity for election campaigns is not the same between candidates who belong to the candidate presenting parties and those who do not is a discrimination based upon creed or social status which is prohibited by Article 14, paragraph 1 of the Constitution (other arguments concern the proportional election system, and in the present case where the avoiding of the small constituency election is at issue, are in themselves, inappropriate). 2. As mentioned above, the specific determination of the scheme of the electoral system for the members of the House of Representatives is left to the discretion of Diet within the limitation that all members of the Diet should represent the people. The choice of the small constituency system as one of the methods of election of the members of the House of Representatives shall be unconstitutional only when the choice can be regarded as an excess of such a discretion. [Summary 1] The system of small constituency is accompanied by the possibility that persons who belong to a political party which has a high nationwide support can gain more seats than the proportion of the votes they have won. On the other hand, opposition parties and minority parties may gain a majority of the seats if they manage to get https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_en/detail?id=458 4/23