6/25/2020
Details of 1999 (Gyo-Tsu) 35 | Judgments of the Supreme Court
television broadcast is indispensable, but this view does not pay
sufficient attention to the scale of the influence of radio or television
broadcasting nowadays and or the fact that there are local radio and
television stations spread nationwide, and therefore, these are not
justifiable grounds for the differences. Furthermore, political
broadcasting should not be assessed separately, but should be
considered inseparable from other election campaigns allowed to
candidate-presenting political parties and compares with the election
campaign allowed to candidates.
To summarise, the view that the benefit which candidates who belong
to a candidate-presenting political party receive is at the level which
inevitably emerges by allowing election campaigns to candidatespresenting political parties should be regarded as overly conservative.
On the contrary, the difference in the election campaign between
candidates who belong to the candidate-presenting political party and
those who do not belong to such parties has reached a level which
can hardly be acknowledged as reasonable.
5) The possibility of qualifying as candidate-presenting political
parties
1. Even if becoming a candidate who belongs to a candidatepresenting political party entails a major effect as examined above, if
it is easy for a person who intends to stand in an election to organise
a political party or an organisation, or by changing the organisation of
the political party or the organisation to which he belongs, to become
a candidate who belongs to a candidate-presenting political party,
standing as a candidate who does not belong to such a party will
mean that the candidate has waived the possibility of receiving a
benefit in relation to the election campaign, and therefore, there is no
problem concerning the difference in the benefit.
2. However, according to the amended Law on Public Election, the
requirement to become a candidates-presenting political party is
either having more than5 members of the Diet or having gained more
than 2% of the total valid votes in the latest election. Although most
existing political parties seem to have no problem in fulfilling this
requirement, there is no possibility for political parties or
organisations which do not fulfil this requirement to become
candidate-presenting political parties, and this creates a factor which
seriously prevents the establishment of political organisations with
new policies aiming at the next election. Therefore, those who intend
to stand in the election and who do not belong to a candidatepresenting political party must either be content with conducting an
election campaign under disadvantageous terms and make efforts to
gain more votes than the candidates who belong to candidatepresenting political parties, or, waiving his right to association in
reality, unwillingly join a political party which qualifies as a candidatepresenting political party and stand as a candidate of this party.
6) Conclusion
Thus, as seen above, carrying out an election with such major
differences between candidates who belong to the candidatepresenting political party and those who do not belong to such
parties, while closing the possibility to become a candidatepresenting political party results in forcing candidates who do not
belong to candidate-presenting political party to take part in the 'race'
in extremely disadvantageous terms.
Therefore, provisions of the amended Law on Public Election
concerning election campaigns in small constituency elections allow
discriminatory treatment, depending on whether the candidate
belongs to a political party or an organisation which fulfil the
requirements determined by the law without reasonable grounds, and
are against Article 14, paragraph 1 of the Constitution and also
against the organisational principle of the Diet.
However, taking into account that even if the election in the
constituency in question is invalidated, elections in other
constituencies are not necessarily invalid, and as a result of the
judgment which invalidates the election, a situation which the
Constitution had not presupposed emerges, even if temporarily, in the
present case, in addition to the grounds as stated in iii 3, in
accordance with the doctrine of declaratory judgment, the
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