Tokyo court rules Dec. 16 election unconstitutional but not invalid March 06, 2013

(Source) http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201303060070

By RYUJIRO KOMATSU/ Staff Writer

The Tokyo High Court on March 6 ruled that the December Lower House election was unconstitutional, but stopped short of invalidating the results, the first verdict handed down in a series of lawsuits over the election.

Lawyers around Japan filed lawsuits asking that the election be invalidated because it was conducted without reapportioning districts to overcome the imbalance in the value of a vote due to population discrepancies. The Supreme Court had previously ruled that this imbalance was "in a state of unconstitutionality."

Verdicts in the other lawsuits are expected by March 27. The Supreme Court is then expected to hand down a uniform ruling by the end of the year.

In March 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that the August 2009 Lower House election was in a state of unconstitutionality because the largest difference in the value of a single vote between the most and least populous districts was 2.3 times. In its ruling, the Supreme Court called for the elimination of the process of first giving all prefectures one seat before distributing the remaining seats by population. That process was viewed as being the main cause for the large difference in the value of a vote.

However, the Diet in November passed a bill that only cut seats from the five least populous prefectures. The bill passed on the day the Lower House was dissolved.
The Dec. 16 Lower House election was conducted using the same electoral district boundaries used in the 2009 election that was ruled in a state of unconstitutionality by the Supreme Court. For that reason, the difference in the value of a vote between the most and least populous districts had increased to 2.43 times.
The Tokyo Election Administration Commission, the defendant in the case, argued that the call to invalidate the recent election should be rejected because time was needed to reapportion districts, and the 21 months between the Supreme Court ruling and the December Lower House election was insufficient to make that change.
Under the Public Offices Election Law, lawsuits seeking to invalidate election results are first submitted to high courts rather than district courts as is the usual case with lawsuits. While there is also a provision in that law that calls for efforts to be made to issue rulings within 100 days of the lawsuit being filed, that has previously not been followed to the letter. However, that has apparently changed, as the Tokyo High Court ruling came 79 days after the lawsuit was filed.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1976 and 1985 that Lower House elections were unconstitutional because of the large gap in the value of a vote. However, the court stopped short of invalidating the results of those elections.

The lawsuits related to the 2009 Lower House election led to four rulings at high courts that said it was unconstitutional, three that said it was held "in a state of unconstitutionality," on the ground that there had not been enough time before the election to correct the vote imbalance, and two rulings that said it was constitutional.

(Reference)
 http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/allegations-of-general-election-fraud.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxkcOFjJvfE