3rd Court Finds Japan Lower House Poll Constitutional

Naha, Okinawa Pref., May 20 (Jiji Press)–The Naha branch of Fukuoka High Court ruled Wednesday that the Feb. 8 election for Japan’s House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the country’s parliament, was constitutional in terms of vote-value disparities. Presiding Judge Hiroaki Kikuchi dismissed a claim by a group of lawyers led by Hidetoshi Masunaga that sought to nullify the election results. The plaintiffs argued that the maximum vote-value disparity of 2.1 times in the election failed to satisfy the constitutional requirement for equality in the value of votes. It was the third ruling on a total of 16 lawsuits filed with 14 high courts and high court branches across the country by two groups of lawyers including the Masunaga-led group. On Tuesday, Takamatsu and Fukuoka high courts found the election to be constitutional. Kikuchi said that the so-called Adams method, introduced in the 2024 Lower House election to better reflect differences in regional populations when setting the number of constituencies in each prefecture, was reasonable. “Even considering that disparities have widened somewhat since the 2024 election, it cannot be said that it violates the Constitution’s demand for vote-value equality,” the judge said. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]