6/25/2020 Details of 2001 (Gyo-Tsu) 82 | Judgments of the Supreme Court before the Amendment, Japanese citizens residing abroad were not listed on the electoral register and therefore they were precluded from voting. This may be because in order to enable Japanese citizens residing abroad to vote, necessary measures should have been taken for example, providing Japanese diplomatic establishments abroad with necessary human and material resources, which would have required efforts to overcome many obstacles. According to the records, the following facts are evident: on April 27, 1984, the Cabinet submitted to the 101st session of the Diet a "Bill for Partial Amendment of the Public Offices Election Law" which was aimed to establish an overseas voting system applicable to all elections of HR members and HC members, on the grounds that "under the circumstances where an increasing number of Japanese citizens reside abroad along with the development of close relationships between Japan and other countries, it is necessary to guarantee such Japanese citizens the opportunity to exercise the right to vote." The bill was continuously carried over until the 105th session without substantive deliberation, and finally quashed upon the dissolution of the House of Representatives on June 2, 1986 and from that day until the Election was held on October 20, 1996, no amendment of law was made to enable Japanese citizens residing abroad to exercise the right to vote. Even if there had been any problems to solve with regard to the implementation of fair elections and provision of correct information on candidates to allow a number of Japanese citizens residing all across the world to exercise the right to vote, considering that the Cabinet, which is responsible for the implementation of elections, already submitted the amendment bill in 1984 on the assumption that it should be possible to solve such problems, it cannot be said that there were unavoidable grounds for the Diet to take no measures to establish an overseas voting system for more than ten years since the amendment bill was quashed, thereby precluding Japanese citizens residing abroad from voting in the Election. Consequently, the Public Offices Election Law before the Amendment was in violation of Article 15(1) and (3), Article 43(1), and the proviso of Article 44 of the Constitution for the reason that it completely precluded the jokoku appellants who were Japanese citizens residing abroad from voting at the time of the Election. 3. Constitutionality of the Public Offices Election Law after the Amendment Although the Amendment established an overseas voting system for allowing Japanese citizens residing abroad to vote in national elections, it was also stipulated that, for the time being, Japanese citizens residing abroad were allowed to vote only in elections of HR members under the proportional representation system and elections of HC members under the proportional representation system, and they were not allowed to vote in elections of HR members under the single-seat constituency system and elections of HC members under the constituency system. At that time, there was an opinion that, under the circumstances where it was practically difficult to provide Japanese citizens residing abroad with election bulletins before the voting day and therefore it was difficult to provide them with correct information on individual candidates, there were problems that still needed consideration regarding the measure to allow Japanese citizens residing abroad to vote in elections of HR members under the single-seat constituency system and elections of HC members under the constituency system, in which voters must write the names of candidates with their own hands. In light of this, it is inappropriate to go so far as to say that it was groundless to allow Japanese citizens residing abroad to vote only in elections under the proportional representation system, which might cause fewer problems, as the first step to establishing an overseas voting system. However, considering the repeated use of the overseas voting system and remarkable progress in communication technology on a global scale since the Amendment, it is no longer extremely difficult to provide Japanese citizens residing abroad with correct information on individual candidates. Furthermore, the Law for Partial Amendment of the Public Offices Election Law (Law No. 118 of 2000) was promulgated on November 1 and put into force on November 21, 2000, with the aim of adopting an open list for elections of HC https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_en/detail?id=1264 12/21