Not Facing Jeopardy

The Court gave the House of Councillors an extra hard homework on Thanksgiving Thursday. The Okayama Branch of Hiroshima High Court decided that the election of the House in July had been unconstitutional, because of value gap between votes. It declared that winning of a candidate in Okayama district had been invalid for the first time in the history of elections of the House. The judgment strongly accused the laziness of the House in modifying inequality between voters. Legislators in the House have to be responsible for their sovereign people.

The judgment focused on the time the House had possessed. The Supreme Court demanded the House to amend fundamental structure of the election system to secure equality of vote value in September 2009. However, the House only involved in minor adjustment reducing four seats from four electoral districts and moving them to other districts. As its result, the value of one vote in Tottori became 4.77 times bigger than that in Hokkaido at the election this summer. The Court accused the House not making serious effort to narrow the gap in three and nine months they had.

Considering the negative effect on public interest, the Courts had been avoiding dismissal of a result of election, even when they determined the election to be unconstitutional. Okayama Branch, however, independently decided that the House’s reluctance for reform overused its discretion. Indicating invalidity of the winners of all districts, it said that activity of the House could be maintained without 73 inappropriately elected legislators out of total 242.

In this jeopardy of legitimacy of the House, legislators are still optimistic. Secretary General of Liberal Democratic Party’s legislators in the House of Councillors, Masashi Waki, said that some change might be done by next election in 2016. But he showed no idea for necessary reform. Other party leaders also expressed their concern without concrete idea how to achieve better system. They look like incompetent students in elementary school who do not understand what their teacher means.

One lawyer who consisted the accusers group criticized the House of discussing important issues without democratic legitimacy. Actually, the House of Councillors embarked on deliberations on bad-reputed Designated Secrecy Bill in a committee on Thursday. Leaving election system reform behind and pushing a bill excessively restricting human rights, the House is going wrong with double mistakes. The legislative branch in Japan is losing its credibility with the ostrich effect.