Osaka High Court Finds July Upper House Election Constitutional

Osaka, Oct. 24 (Jiji Press)–Osaka High Court on Friday found the House of Councillors election in July constitutional, rejecting a claim by a group of lawyers that the election results should be nullified due to vote-value disparities. The plaintiffs plan to file an appeal. The maximum vote-value gap stood at 3.13 times in the July 20 election for the upper chamber of the Diet, Japanese parliament. Led by lawyer Hidetoshi Masunaga, the group argued that this was not in line with the equal value of votes under the Constitution. The ruling, handed down by Presiding Judge Masafumi Kawabata, was the first for a total of 16 lawsuits filed with 14 high courts or high court branches across the country by Masunaga’s group and another group of lawyers. The focus was how the court would evaluate the slight expansion in the maximum gap from 3.03 times in the previous 2022 Upper House election, which the top court ruled constitutional, without revisions to the election system. Presiding Judge Kawabata said it was hard to say the increase in the maximum vote-value disparity was significant. Kawabata said the Diet needs to win public understanding to move forward with efforts to correct disparities, citing falling turnouts in the four prefectures where constituencies had been merged with a view to easing vote-value gaps. The Diet’s failure to produce measures to correct vote-value disparities by the July election was therefore unavoidable in a way, he said. At the same time, he also said, “The pressing issue has become even more urgent.” At a press conference following the ruling, lawyer Masunaga said, “This is a warning from the court that the current situation is unacceptable.” The high courts and high court branches will produce rulings by November. If these are appealed, the Supreme Court is expected to issue a unified judgment. In the July election, the number of voters per parliamentary seat was the lowest in the Fukui prefectural constituency and the highest in the Kanagawa constituency. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]