Japan’s Lower House of Parliament the House of Representatives, dissolved

The Japanese Lower House of Parliament-the House of Representatives was dissolved on 16 November 2012, and paved the way ahead to general elections scheduled on 16 December 2012.

Takahiro Yokomichi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives read out the imperial decree signed by Emperor Akihito to parliament, which proclaimed the dissolution of the government.

Campaigns of the election scheduled for 16 December 2012 would start from 4 December 2012 and in case the ruling Noda’s Center-left Party Looses the election, Japan would get its seventh Prime Minister after many years.

The Lower House or the House of Representatives in Japan has 480 seats and the party that would win over more than half of the seats in the upcoming elections would lead the country ahead of the crisis situation being faced by the nation and in case any of the parties fails to win majority, Japan will have to face the dramatic syndrome of the coalition government and the future of Japan would then depend on the decisions yet to come.

Elections in Japan

National Diet of Japan’s Bicameral Legislature is formed with the two different houses namely the lower house and the upper house.

The Upper House is called the House of Councillors and Lower House is called as The House of Representatives. Parallel voting system is used for electing the members of both the houses of the Diet in Japan.

Article 6 of Japan states that the Emperor would appoint the Prime Minister of Japan that is chosen by the National Diet and he is also responsible for appointment of the Chief Judge of Supreme Court that is chosen by the Cabinet.

Chapter V of the Japanese Constitution states the formation of the Cabinet and resting of executive powers to it, under Article 65. It also mentions the process of election of the Prime Minister in the Nation under article 66 and 67 and powers vested to him under the Articles 68 to 75.

Article 66 of the Japanese Constitution states that the Cabinet should consist of a Prime Minister, who will be its head and a group of ministers of the state mentioned by law. Both the Prime Minister and the Ministers of State should be the Civilians. To exercise the executive powers, the Cabinet is collectively responsible to the diet.

Article 67 states that the Prime Minister would be chosen from the members of the diet following the resolution passed by the diet and this selection process would follow to all other businesses.

The Article also explains that in case any of the two houses, the House of Representatives or the House of Councillors disagree on the decision and if no agreement can be reached by a joint committee meet of both the houses, within ten days (that would not include the recess period), after the House of Representatives (lower house) has made its decision, than under such situation the decision of the House of representatives would be considered as the final decision of the National Diet.  

The house of representatives includes 480 members in total that is elected for a term of four years. Out of these 480 members 300 members are elected from the single-member constituencies and the rest of the 180 members are elected from 11 multi-member constituencies using the party-list system of proportional representation. To Win majority and form the government, a party needs 241 seats.

Articles that allows dissolving of the Lower house

Article 54. When the House of Representatives is dissolved, there must be a general election of members of the House of Representatives within forty (40) days from the date of dissolution, and the Diet must be convoked within thirty (30) days from the date of the election.

When the House of Representatives is dissolved, the House of Councillors is closed at the same time. However, the Cabinet may in time of national emergency convoke the House of Councillors in emergency session.

Measures taken at such session as mentioned in the proviso of the preceding paragraph shall be provisional and shall become null and void unless agreed to by the House of Representatives within a period of ten (10) days after the opening of the next session of the Diet.

Article 69. If the House of Representatives passes a non-confidence resolution, or rejects a confidence resolution, the Cabinet shall resign en masse, unless the House of Representatives is dissolved within ten (10) days.

Democratic Party of Japan that was ruling the Government for past three years took the decision of dissolving the house due to its recent decision of doubling the taxes and its inability to handle the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis.

The decision of dissolving the lower house came at the time, when Japan is struggling to prop-up its economy, plans to re-establish the energy policies are on the way after the Fukushima Nuclear crisis, reconstruction of areas which were devastated by the Tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011 are in process, and re-establishing good ties with China that deteriorated due to territorial dispute on Diaoyu Islands.