2 Courts Find Japan Feb. Lower House Poll Constitutional

Takamatsu, Kagawa Pref./Fukuoka, May 19 (Jiji Press)–Two high courts in Japan on Tuesday ruled that the February general election for the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the country’s parliament, was constitutional in terms of vote-value disparities. A group of lawyers led by Hidetoshi Masunaga that filed the lawsuits claimed that the maximum vote-value disparity of 2.10 times in the election failed to meet the equal value of votes under the Constitution. The rulings by Takamatsu High Court in the western prefecture of Kagawa and Fukuoka High Court in the southwestern prefecture of Fukuoka were the first in a total of 16 lawsuits filed with the 14 high courts and high court branches in the nation by two groups of lawyers including the Masunaga-led group. In the Feb. 8 election, the No. 1 constituency of Tottori Prefecture, western Japan, had the smallest number of voters, at 220,368, among all single-seat constituencies, while the largest number was 462,088 in the No. 3 constituency of the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, creating the vote-value gap of 2.10 times, according to data released by the internal affairs ministry. The ratio was slightly higher than the largest gap of 2.06 times in the previous Lower House election in 2024, which the Supreme Court ruled constitutional. The so-called Adams method, designed to better reflect differences in regional populations, was used in the latest election after it was adopted for the first time in the 2024 election. Presiding Judge Yoshihisa Takase of Fukuoka High Court said that the Adams method is “reasonable.” “It could not be seen that the gap widened due to factors other than natural population movements,” he said, adding, “The expansion was not significant.” Masahiro Fujita, presiding judge of Takamatsu High Court, showed a similar view in handing down the court’s ruling. After the Fukuoka court’s ruling, Masunaga told the press that the ruling is “unreasonable,” adding, “It is never reasonable that a gap remains between depopulated areas.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]