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On November 28, a meeting of the executive of the DPJ Political and Diet Reform Promotion Headquarters, chaired by DPJ Supreme Advisor Katsuya Okada, was held at party headquarters. On the agenda was: (1) the party’s basic stance on the reform of the electoral system for the House of Representatives, and (2) the ruling by the Hiroshima High Court’s Okayama branch regarding the disparity in the value of votes in the House of Councillors election.
Following the meeting, Okada commented to reporters regarding the Hiroshima High Court ruling in the case brought by two groups of lawyers, who claimed that disparities in vote value as high as 4.77 existed in the recent House of Councillors election. The court ruled that the election held for the Okayama prefecture district was “unconstitutional and invalid”.
Okada said, “I believe that we must take [this ruling] very seriously. It was a subject of discussion during the meeting of the executive. Discussions regarding the electoral system are taking place under the authority of the President of the House of Councillors, but we confirmed that we as a party must also further accelerate our discussions on this matter. Since it is the House of Councillors electoral system, it will naturally be discussed in [the DPJ caucus in] the House of Councillors, but we must carry out the final authorization by the party in the DPJ Political and Diet Reform Promotion Headquarters. We confirmed that we would ask the Secretary General of the DPJ Caucus in the House of Councillors Yuichiro Hata for a briefing on this matter, and would go on to thoroughly discuss the issue in our Headquarters. We are also expecting further High Court rulings on this matter, but this one is much more severe that the initial rulings, and so we need to take it seriously.”
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