Japan Times
Readers in Council
September 20, 2000
I find it quite incredible that Supreme Court Judge Shigeru Yamaguchi insists that while the Japanese constitution guarantees equality before the law, a 5-to-1 ratio disparity in the value of votes from different prefectures is constitutional ("Fivefold vote-value disparity tolerable," Sept. 7).
Putting aside the issue of what impact such a ratio disparity has on the policymaking process of a popularly elected democratic form of representative government, I am rather perturbed by the fact that I simply do not understand how such disparities can be considered constitutional.
In my failure to comprehend this ruling, either I must be very stupid or the majority of the elite Supreme Court justices work and think on a plane of intellectual sophistication that is beyond my humble faculties of reasoning.
KO UNOKI
Fujisawa, Kanagawa
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