Top Court Finds 2024 Lower House Poll Constitutional

Tokyo, Sept. 26 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Supreme Court ruled on Friday that last October’s House of Representatives election was constitutional in terms of vote-value disparities. The ruling came after 14 high courts and high court branches across the country all acknowledged the constitutionality of the Lower House election. The top court’s Second Petty Bench issued the unified ruling for lawsuits filed by two groups of lawyers nationwide to nullify the election’s results. It is unusual for such lawsuits to be handled by a petty bench instead of the Grand Bench. The lawyers claimed that the maximum vote-value disparity of 2.06 times in the election failed to meet the equal value of votes under the Constitution. According to local election boards and other sources, the largest disparity was seen between the Hokkaido No. 3 constituency, which had the most voters, and the Tottori No. 1 constituency, which had the fewest. The gap shrank from 2.08 times in the previous Lower House election in 2021. The 2024 election was the first to use constituencies based on the so-called Adams method, which was expected to reduce vote-value disparities. Friday’s ruling reflected the opinions of three of the four justices on the Second Petty Bench. The remaining justice, Junichi Takasu, found that the Lower House election was held in a “state of unconstitutionality.” The ruling recognized the electoral map based on the Adams method as “reasonable,” adding that there was no factor other than natural population movement that caused the maximum gap to exceed 2.00 times. It concluded that the gap was not so significant as to violate equality in vote value. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]