Lawsuits Simultaneous in 47 Prefectures

* Written by PPPC Visiting Fellow

 A day after the July Upper House election, a group of lawyers moved

lawsuits in all the prefectural courts to claim that the election in

which the disparity in the weight of one vote counted more than *4.77

was unconstitutional and invalid, and also that it requires Diet

measures to realize a truly fair vote election; so-called the “fair

value of one-vote suit”.

 The significant point here is that the group of lawyers moved the

motion in all the 47 prefectures simultaneously.

 Traditionally, there has been a judicial reasoning to avoid

sentencing that the election was invalid in order to avoid an incident

where the election system is to be changed while there was no lawmaker

from the relevant constituency as result of the court’s judgment; a

scenario which the Constitution did not assume. In many cases such

conditional reasons has been applied to justify the past elections.

 However, this time, as the lawyers took the action in all the 47

constituencies and all the high courts will likely appeal to the

Supreme Court, it is expected that the Supreme Court lumps all the 47

constituencies together and gives judgment from either one of

“constitutional”, “unconstitutional but valid”, “unconstitutional

and illegal”, and “unconstitutional and invalid” indiscriminately.

It is important that the Supreme Court this time has difficulty using

conditional reasons in giving the sentence.

 It means that the scenario will not cause the circumstance in which

only a part of the lawmakers will lose the Diet seats. The cases will

also likely influence the Supreme Court’s judgment over validity of

the 2012 Lower House election to be sentenced in autumn. The lawyers’

tenaciousness for “revolution” toward a fair vote can be understood.

 In Japan, since 1960s to today, there have been lawsuits over

validity of the elections constantly for 50 years almost endlessly.

 Hidetoshi Masunaga, a leader of the group of lawyers, explains that

the background is the Supreme Court which never explicitly mentioned

the moral precepts

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