The three great principles behind the Japanese Constitution are (1) respect for fundamental human rights, (2) the principle of peace and (3) the sovereignty of the people. There are a number of domestic laws and regulations that relate to (1), whereas (2) is represented by Article 9 alone, there being no particular implementing provisions in domestic laws and regulations. However, the duty to "faithfully observe" the "treaties concluded by Japan and established laws of nations" prescribed by Article 98 of the Constitution means that many treaties already have domestic application (Refer Materials 1.) This means that even without enacting new laws in compliance with the content of the laws of nations, the Japanese state and people are directly bound by the wording of treaties. Then there are the concrete provisions implementing (3), the sovereignty of the people. Sovereignty in this context means the doctrine regarding the "final power to decide the shape of national politics". Further, there are 3 theories as to who is meant by "the people", the "entire electorate" theory, the "all citizens who are natural persons" theory and the "entire electorate together with all citizens who are natural persons" theory. *1 The Japanese Constitution employs indirect democracy and representative democracy in relation to this sovereignty of the people ( see the first paragraph of the Preamble, Article 41 and Article 43 Paragraph 1). We have to create a system where the will of the people, expressed as a desire to create such and such a political structure, is reflected in precisely that form in the Diet and government. This is the basic issue in the structural reform of Japanese politics.

The principles of representative democracy are illustrated in Materials 2. Today, as Japan's social structure diversifies and becomes more complex, the meaning of 'representative' in representative democracy is understood as "systematisation that reflects the will of the people, which exists pluralistically within society, fairly and accurately in the Diet, so far as is possible" (this being known as "semi-representation"). There are two prerequisites for this semi-representation, (1) the political party system and (2) the electoral system. Filters are needed between them. Firstly (1) the existence of political parties is indispensable in order for the pluralistic will of the people and social influence to be proportionately reflected in the Diet. *2 Further, (2) these days the electoral system is obviously necessary as the method by which representatives are elected. If both these lenses function normally, without distortion, a parliamentary system satisfactory to the people is produced. All is well if these two lenses make the peoples' representatives a semblance of the people. However, the fact that the reality is far from the principle is much the same in both the west and Japan.

A schematic diagram of the present shape of Japan's representative democracy would be something like Materials 3. There is no law in Japan at present on political parties although the Political Funds Control Law regulates gifts and receipts and the public disclosure of payments to, and expenditures from, political funds *3 and the Political Party Subsidy Law *4 deals with the subsidizing of the political activities of political parties by government grants, whilst the Law Bestowing Legal Personality on Political Parties gives political parties in receipt of government grants as subsidies legal personality, so that they can hold, maintain and use assets and conduct business. It also has the purpose of securing openness and fairness in political activities. The Political Party Law that Japan should have would be based on the principles of semi-representation and prescribe rights, duties and penalties concerning the purposes, functions, activities and membership of political parties. The two laws just mentioned do not regulate these aspects of the form political parties should take; they presuppose the existence of Japan's current political parties and merely control the same from various perspectives. However, the electoral system, which is the other of the two lenses, is regulated by the Public Offices Election Law. The current law was newly established in 1950, however it was in essence a re-enactment or continuation of the substance of the thorough and systematic regulation resulting from the elections movement, which had been completed with the revision of the 1925 Elections of Members of the House of Representatives Law (known as the Ordinary Elections Law). As is well known, the 1925 Law abolished the requirement of payment of taxes to gain the right to vote and bestowed suffrage on 'male subjects of the Emperor' aged 25 year or more (the right of candidacy being for those aged 30 or more). In combination with the Preservation of Public Order Law enacted the same year and the existing Publishing Law, Newspapers Law and Public Order and Policing Law and other laws and regulations on public order, the 1925 Law severed direct contact between candidates and electors, primarily through the prohibition of door-to-door canvassing *5 and election campaigns were restricted to speech and writing subject to various limitations. Specifically, considering only election campaigns and expenditure on the same, these included (1) the prohibition of door-to-door canvassing, (2) restrictions on written documents and illustrations, (3) the prohibition of advance campaigning, (4) restrictions on campaign expenditure, (5) new penal provisions for persons violating campaign restrictions and (6) the introduction of the public management of elections. These regulations made progress towards democratisation with the revision of the Elections of Members of the House of Representatives Law and Elections of Members of the House of Councillors Law under the democratisation policies pursuant to Macarthur's post war occupation policies, however the outbreak of the Korean War, on 25 June 1950, was an opportunity for the content of consecutive revisions in 1951 and 1952 of the Public Elections Law, newly enacted in 1950, to virtually reproduce the specific features of the former 1925 Law. It is a mystery as to why the spirit of the Ordinary Elections Law under the pre-war Imperial reign is still firmly in existence now, as we approach 60 years since the end of the War. The worn-out post war system is seen as problematic and there is now a clamour for reform. This being the case, relics from the Taisho Era should be done away with at the earliest opportunity. This should go without saying if it is a fundamental principles supporting indirect democracy.

(1)The Political Parties Law
Whilst there is no clear provision in the Japanese Constitution on political parties, there is no argument against the view that political parties are constitutionally acceptable (support is usually based on the freedom of association in Article 21). There have been numerous proposals for a Political Parties Law in Japan since 1947, however no law has been enacted. However, political parties themselves will necessarily exist in a democratic state. Japan has, with this "Manifesto Election" arrived at an age of two great political parties, when political parties exert more and more influence on the course of politics.

(2)The Political Funds Control Law and the Political Party Subsidy Law
This is the issue of politics and money and it has an intrinsic connection to representative democracy. Firstly, (1) the activities of members of the Diet and in particular the work of passing laws are the occupational duties of members. The activity of passing laws must, from the nature of being representative of the people, be a service to the rights and freedoms associated with the lives of the sovereign people. It follows that the content of that legislation must emanate from materials, data, petitions, requests and the like from the people. The activities of Diet members necessarily advance amidst constant daily contact and negotiations with the people. Those who are Diet members do not conduct themselves solely through debates with their peers inside the Diet. On the other hand, (2) the people are constitutionally guaranteed the freedom to seek, through their Diet members, ways of changing the Japanese nation and politics, implementing structural reform and deregulation and achieving happiness for all the people, including themselves. There is no inconsistency between this and representative democracy. The Constitution also approves of the fact that in order to bring these constitutional rights of the people and of Diet members to fruition, the expenses of so doing should be borne by the state and the parties concerned. The Political Funds Control Law and the Political Party Subsidy Law are the laws laying down the rules in relation to how this is done. Although Japan has numerous punitive provisions beginning with the crime of bribery in the Criminal Code, the Political Funds Control Law, the Political Party Subsidy Law and the offence of intermediary profit, each contains gaps, or at least gaps are found and evasive conduct occurs. The same situation exists in America. *6 My view is that we should respond, not with preventative regulations, but with regulation after the fact. In other words, all funds used by political parties and Diet members would be publicly disclosed, down to the last yen. Records would be freely available for perusal, copying or access on the Internet by anyone (this has already been done in America. I am not currently able to judge whether when the usage is contrary to current regulatory legislation the use should not be exempted from penalties under that legislation or whether there should be reform towards slightly more relaxed regulations.) I want to resolve the problem of politics and money by leaving it to the electors' political judgment, the electors having freely viewed the publicly disclosed materials and content, to judge political parties' usage of money. It may be that the propriety of uses of expenditure by our representatives in the fulfilment of their commissions is not something that can be prescribed in advance by law. These uses are not amenable to legislation, in other words they are ex-legal in nature. In the final result it should be the electors, the people, who bear the responsibility to decide.

On the other hand, if the following three preconditions in relation to the political activities of the people are in place, (1) a real connection to public facts, (2) having the sole object of promoting the public good and (3) the public facts are proven to have been true, then even if the provisions on the offence of bribery have been contravened, the illegality should be vitiated and the matter should be treated as not being a crime in my view. The interpretative basis for this view is the provisions of Article 230-2 of the Criminal Code, which prescribes a balance between the protection of others' reputations and the freedom of expression. *7 This right, when compared in the democratic process against the reputations of others, is the freedom to express political opinions, which is of ideological benefit and should be treated with greater weight. The fairness of public interest activities and the confidence of the people are conflicting interests. I intend to use the interpretative method above to rationally balance these interests. Perhaps the Japan of today, in the midst of the greatest era of reform ever undertaken, should carry out this round of reforms with the people truly at the centre. The people are the central actors all of the following and more; the use of private energy to "privatize whatever can be done privately", PPP (Public Private Partnerships) and PFI (Private Finance Initiatives), decentralization, the promotion of regulatory reform and the Law on Special Zones for Structural Reform. If the era is one of this kind of reform, the people should mobilize politicians and funding to promote private member's bills, as in America, should, in my view, be seen as reasonable political activity devoid of illegality.

*1
Tokyo Legal Mind (eds.) The C-BOOK: General Constitutional Debates - Human Rights (in Japanese) p.63 ff

*2
The famous classical definition of a political party is that of Edmund Burke, "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed". At present Japan has no law that directly regulates political parties, only a definition of political parties in a law that is designed to control political parties for a particular purpose.

*3
Political Funds Control Law; promulgated on 29 July 1948, coming into force on the same day. The Law was established to place political parties, politicians and political activity under the supervision of the people, secure the transparency and fairness of political activity and contribute to the healthy development of democratic politics. The Law regulates matters including the reporting of contributions to and expenditures from political funds by political groups, limits political donations and controls political funding events.

*4
Political Party Subsidy Law; promulgated on 4 February 1994, coming into force on 1 July 1995. The Law was established for the government to subsidize political parties with grants, reflecting the importance of the role played by political parties in a parliamentary democracy and to, through securing healthy political activity and the transparency and fairness of the same, contribute to the healthy development of democracy. Political parties must account for the way the grants are spent, submitting a report, which is generally available. The amount given to a party is calculated according to the number of members and the percentage of the vote received.

*5
The provisions on door-to-door canvassing are said to have been unique to Japan and not found in the legislation of any other country. A survey was carried out in 1922 of diplomats then present in Japan, including British, American and French diplomats however apparently the countries surveyed reported that they had no provisions prohibiting door-to-door canvassing. Masao Soma, A History of Japan's Electoral System (in Japanese), Kyushu University Press: 1986, p.56.
A Ministry of Home Affairs explanation was issued at the time for why Japan legislated to prohibit door-to-door canvassing. It is stated, on p.60 of Soma's History that "Reasoning from the intrinsic nature of elections, candidates seek to gain electors' trust through their humanity, their opinions or their doctrinal or policy stance. Constituents' decisions on whether candidates should be elected should not be swayed by personal considerations based on emotion such as in the case of door-to-door canvassing; from the candidates' perspective this would offend their dignity and from the electors' perspective it would create a custom of treating a public matter according to personal sentiment. To fail to correct this matter now would no doubt have the opposite effect of jeopardizing the fairness of elections."
Putting reasons for the prohibition of door-to-door canvassing to one side, we can see from this explanatory text that the Ministry of Home Affairs position was that the essence of an election is not what concrete policies a candidate puts into place once elected (in today's language the candidate's "manifesto") but that it was simply the person, their views, their experience, their academic background and their lineage by which electors should decide. I have been instructed on this point by Professor Norihiko Narita of Surugadai University. If this is the case then it is all the more true that we should drastically reconsider the controls on election campaigning, beginning with door-to-door canvassing.

*6
Kazumi Fujimoto, Political Funding in America (in Japanese), Keiso Shobo: 1999.

*7
Article 230-2 of the Criminal Code (Defamation - Exception in cases related to the public interest) (1) When the act mentioned in Paragraph 1 of the preceding article is deemed to have been committed in allegation of facts related to the public interest and with the sole object of promoting the public good, it shall not be punished, if, on inquiry into the facts, the truth thereof is established. (2) In applying the provisions of the preceding paragraph, facts concerning the criminal act of a person against whom a prosecution has not yet been instigated shall be deemed to be facts related to the public interest. (3) When the act mentioned in Paragraph 1 of the preceding article has been committed in the allegation of facts concerning a public officer or a candidate for elected public office, it shall not be punished if, on inquiry into the facts, the truth thereof is established. The accepted theory in relation to the interpretation of this article is that the three prerequisites in this article are prerequisites for the legitimizing of the act. See p.92 ff of Tokyo Legal Mind (eds.) The C-BOOK: Theories of Criminal Law (in Japanese).