|
Asahi Shimbun
January 16, 2004
http://www.asahi.com/english/opinion/TKY200401160139.html
Editorial: Balance vote disparity
January 16, 2004
Diet must act to remedy unfair seat distribution.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled the July 2001 Upper House election was
constitutional despite an enormous inequity in the value of single votes cast.
Nine of the 15 justices on the top court's Grand Bench argued that the weight
differential among single votes in the election was ``not beyond the limits of
legislative discretionary power the Diet is invested with.'' It is greatly to be
regretted that the Supreme Court's ruling simply supports the existing
deplorable situation.
But a closer look at the views expressed by the justices shows the court is
adjusting its traditional position, which virtually leaves the decision on the
issue to the Diet.
Four of the nine justices who backed the majority opinion included a warning
to the Diet, saying the court may declare the next Diet election
unconstitutional if lawmakers take no action to rectify the existing disparity
in the weight of votes.
In other words, a majority of the guardians of the Constitution may declare
the Upper House poll to be held in July unconstitutional unless the Diet takes
convincing steps to narrow the weight differential. The upper chamber is now
under urgent pressure to respond to this warning.
To understand the ruling, we need to look back on political events of autumn
2000. With less than a year to go before the Upper House poll in question, the
three ruling parties enacted a revision to the Public Offices Election Law to
introduce the so-called open-list system into the proportional representation
segment of Upper House elections, overcoming strong resistance from the
opposition parties. Under the new system, political parties do not rank their
candidates on lists, instead allowing voters to write on their ballots the name
of either an individual candidate or the party they wish to vote for. The ruling
parties hoped this move would help their celebrity candidates, such as famous TV
personalities, garner more votes-and more seats-for the parties.
But all through the debate on election reform, little attention was paid to
the issue of vote-weight gaps. The ruling coalition took only a cosmetic
step-reducing the number of seats allocated to the nation's three
least-populated districts by two apiece-and left the maximum differential in the
value of a single vote at a factor of greater than five.
Such moves clearly demonstrate that the nation's lawmakers are bent on
protecting their vested interests at any cost and dead set against any drastic
reform that could threaten them. Meanwhile, the ``watchdog of the Constitution''
has consistently failed to force any legislative action to correct this basic
flaw in the election system. This lamentable state of affairs has led to a
steady erosion of public confidence in the legislative and judicial systems.
But the Supreme Court, it seems, is finally awakening to the danger inherent
in maintaining the status quo, a situation that is only deepening public
cynicism about the systems. The ruling's dissenting opinion reflected stringent
criticisms expressed by six of the justices.
Justice Hiroshi Fukuda, a former career diplomat, for instance, commenting on
the argument for creating a European-style constitutional court, wrote that if
the Supreme Court keeps avoiding a decision to label the huge vote-weight
disparity as unconstitutional, it would mean ``the current judicial system would
lose its function of determining constitutionality.''
Justice Takehisa Fukazawa, a former lawyer, recommended annulling the results
of the Upper House election, adding that ``expecting the Diet to take action to
redress the disparity is like waiting 100 years for the waters of the Yellow
River to clear.''
Equalizing the weight of individual votes is crucial for maintaining our
nation's foundation of representative democracy. The top court's traditional
majority opinion, namely that a certain degree of disproportion in the value of
a single vote is acceptable owing to the region-representing nature of Upper
House constituencies, is clearly based on tortured logic.
That same weight disparity also works to uphold the mechanism of traditional
pork-barrel influence trading. The ruling offers a good opportunity for
legislators to embark on radical reform to narrow the disparities for both
houses of the Diet.
The nation's judiciary is beginning to change with the times. The Diet should
also change. |
