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Details of 1999 (Gyo-Tsu) 35 | Judgments of the Supreme Court
effectively onto the administration of the country. On the other hand,
taking into account the requirement of political stability, the system
should be specifically designed in each country in accordance with
the actual state of affairs in the respective country. Therefore, there is
no single, invariable model for the election system. Our Constitution,
concerning the system of the election of members of both houses of
the Diet, for reasons mentioned above, within the limit that the
members of the Diet should represent all the people, provides that
the number of the members of the Diet, the constituencies, the
method of voting and other matters related to election should be
determined by law (Arts. 43 and 47), and leaves the actual decision
on the scheme of the election system of the members of both houses
to the broad discretion of the Diet. Since the Diet is empowered to
decide which system of election is appropriate for achieving the goal
of electing fair and effective representatives for both houses by its
discretion, when the Diet has adopted a new system of election, it is
unconstitutional only when the choice of the actual system is beyond
the discretion of the Diet, even considering its broad discretionary
power, because it exceeds the limits mentioned above, or it is against
the requirement of equality under the law and therefore, against the
requirements of the Constitution (Supreme Court, 1974 (Gyo-tsu)
No.75, Judgment of the Grand Bench, April 14, 1976, Minshu 30-3223; Supreme Court, 1979 (Gyo-tsu) No.65, Judgment of the Grand
Bench, April 27,1983, Minshu 37-3-345; Supreme Court, 1981 (Gyotsu) No.65, Judgment of the Grand Bench, November 7, 1983, Minshu
37-9-1243; Supreme Court, 1984 (Gyo-tsu) No.339, Judgment of the
Grand Bench, July 17, 1985, Minshu 39-5-1100; Supreme Court, 1991
(Gyo-tsu) No.111, Judgment of the Grand Bench, January 20, 1993,
Minshu 47-1-67; Supreme Court, 1994 (Gyo-tsu) No.59, Judgment of
the Grand Bench, September 11, 1996 Minshu 50-8-2283; Supreme
Court, 1997 (Gyo-tsu) No.104, Judgment of the Grand Bench,
September 2, 1998, Minshu 52-6-1373).
iii. Based upon the above, grounds for appeal are examined in the
following:
1. As mentioned above, Article 13, paragraph 1 of the amended Law
on Public Election provides that the number of members of the Diet to
be elected in each small constituency in the election for House of
Representatives members is to be one, in all constituencies, and thus
adopted the system of small constituency. Provisions of this
paragraph and the Attached List No.1 to this Law which, based upon
the Law, provides specifics of the demarcation of the constituency
boundaries (hereinafter, 'the Provisions on the Demarcation of
Constituency Boundaries') were enacted in accordance with the plan
of demarcation recommended by the Council on the Demarcation of
Constituency Boundaries for the Election of the Members of the
House of Representatives, which was established by the Law on the
Establishment of the Council on the Demarcation of Constituency
Boundaries for the Election of the Members of the House of
Representatives (hereinafter, 'the Law on the Establishment of the
Constituency Council') which was adopted simultaneously with the
above-mentioned Law No.2 of 1994. Concerning the criteria by which
the Council is to prepare the plan for the demarcation of the
boundary, Art.3 of this Law, applied with a modification by virtue of
Art.2, para.3 of the Supplementary Rules to the Law on the
Constituency Council, provides that 'the balance of the numbers of
the populations of each constituency should be considered, and the
basic rule should be that the result of dividing the largest population
number by the smallest population number is not two or more, and
demarcation should be conducted in a reasonable way, by taking into
account administrative divisions, geography, transportation and other
circumstances in general'. In para.2, it is provided that 'the number of
constituencies for members of the House of Representatives elected
on the basis of the small constituency system in each prefecture,
shall be determined as the number of members of the House of
Representatives less the total number of prefectures and shall be
allocated to each prefecture in proportion to the population number
plus one'. The Council has prepared the plan of the demarcation of
constituency boundaries in accordance with the above criteria. Thus,
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