Legislative Branch in Unconstitutional Situation

It is another denial of legitimacy of the Diet by judicial branch. The Supreme Court of Japan on Wednesday delivered a decision that election of the House of Councillors last year was held in “unconstitutional situation” in terms of equality of value for a vote. It sharply criticized the laziness of legislators in making necessary reform of election system. However, politicians are still not serious about implementing people’s equality under law. So, whom are they representing?

In the election last year, an elected candidate in Tottori district had 482,192 eligible voters, while the one in Hokkaido had 2,299,785. Considering necessary vote for a legislator, the value of one vote in Tottori had 4.77 times larger than in Hokkaido. Although the difference was narrowed compared to the election in 2010 with 5.00 margin at most, the Court decided that 4.77 was an extreme difference as unconstitutional.

The Court also labeled the election 2010 as unconstitutional situation. But there were only nine months from the time when the decision on 2010 election was made to the election in 2013. The Supreme Court, on the other hand, recognized the difficulty of achieving necessary reform in that short period. If the Court had realized the time was ample enough, the election would not have been “in unconstitutional situation,” but “unconstitutional.”

Four Justices out of fifteen added negative opinions, all of which regarded the election was unconstitutional. One of the four, former Chief of Cabinet Legislation Bureau Tsuneyuki Yamamoto, opposed the Court decision, referring the election to have been invalid. While the Supreme Court had been avoiding a decision of invalid election with concern of political confusion, Yamamoto became the first Justice who revealed that strong opinion.

As long as the House keeps the principle of one legislator one vote, the inequality will not be eliminated. It will be possible that lawmakers with a few voters make a decision against others with a large number of voters.

Possibly with immature democracy, legislators are mostly ignoring the decision, eroding trilateral separation of governmental power. “Well, we are doing our best, you know,” was the typical response to the Court’s requirement. The House of Representatives has the same problem now. Not only they could not stop current Prime Minister ignoring legislative branch, as seen in Cabinet decision on collective self-defense right, the legislators cannot guarantee human right for equality in political participation.