Rezensionen / Reviews

Abstract

One of the more interesting recent books on Japanese law deals with the case in which Japan’s highest court invalidated an election. This may puzzle those familiar with the postwar Supreme Court’s mishmash of holdings in legislative malapportionment litigation. While these cases resulted in the Supreme Court concluding at various times that too great an imbalance in the number of voters represented by the geographically allocated seats in the Diet (the national legislature) was or might be unconstitutional, it has always stopped short of actually invalidating an election on constitutional (or any other) grounds.1 However, Kikotsu no hanketsu (“The Courageous Judgment”) by journalist Satoshi Kiyonaga is about the time when Japan’s Supreme Court of Judicature found a Diet election invalid due to excessive government interference in favor of certain candidates – in the middle of World War II, in the face of the fear of assassination and open threats from Prime Minister Hideki Tôjô.2 This was a courageous judgment indeed and deserves whatever attention it can get.3 Short though it may be, Kiyonaga’s work is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Japanese judiciary in wartime. The book focuses on Justice Hisashi Yoshida, who led the panel of judges which investigated and decided the case. As such, it is partially a biography of how, born in 1884 into a household supported by a father who was first a greengrocer and then operated a rickshaw business, he came to study law – first at night school, then full time at what is now Chuo University. At first supporting his studies by working at a court, Yoshida ultimately became a judge. His advancement through the judiciary takes place against a background of Japan’s political environment – a brief period of political liberality (the