On May 30, the DP submitted two pieces of legislation related to the implementation of a quota system to the House of Representatives. These were a Bill Relating to the Promotion of Gender Equality in Politics (tentative translation) and a Bill for Partial Revision of the Public Offices Election Act.
The Bill Relating to the Promotion of Gender Equality in Politics was submitted jointly by the DP, the Communist Party of Japan, the People’s Life Party and the Social Democratic Party. This legislation sets forth the philosophy behind the promotion of gender equality as it relates to political equality. The development of democratic politics through gender equality in politics is important in order to accurately reflect the opinions of a variety of citizens in policy-making and decision-taking. From this perspective, the legislation specifies the basic principle that elections for members of both Houses of the Diet and local assembly members “must take place with the aim of achieving equal numbers of male and female candidates in so far as it is possible to do so” while ensuring that political parties and the like are able to choose their candidates freely. The legislation calls on political parties and the like to make their own independent efforts by, for example, setting targets for the numbers of male and female candidates.
In the press conference following the submission of the bill, the principle sponsor of the legislation, DP member of the House of Representatives Masaharu Nakagawa, explained, “The outline proposal was drawn up last August by an cross-party parliamentarians’ league, and we had been aiming for it to be submitted to the Diet during this session as a cross-party proposal, but once this session came around, the ruling parties wanted to change the expression “equal numbers of male and female candidates” to “balance between male and female candidates”. The opposition parties were of the opinion that the aim of the legislation should be clear. It is a pity that we were unable to come to a compromise.”
Meanwhile, the Bill for a Partial Revision of the Public Offices
Election Act, which was submitted independently by the DP, is
legislation for the implementation of a quota system in the
proportional representation bloc of the House of Representatives
election. It proposes introducing a system whereby candidates
in the same position on the PR list are grouped together according
to gender or the like and candidates to be elected are selected
from each group in turn. In the press conference following
the submission of the bill, the principle sponsor, DP member of the
House of Representatives Seiji Osaka, explained, “This legislation
will make it easier for political parties, using their own
judgement, to engage realizing equal numbers of male and female
candidates, by for example dividing male and female candidates into
separate equally ranked groups, and allowing candidates to be
elected from each group.” Furthermore, DP Policy Research
Committee Chair Shiori Yamao, who had attended the press conference
as one of the sponsors of the bill, stressed, “Ten percent of Diet
members are women. If that were to rise to 50%, we would
definitely see a change in politics. The behaviour of the
ruling parties in calling for the empowerment of women while
dragging their feet regarding a quota system is
contradictory. The DP will demonstrate our high aspirations
and create an impetus for social change by working toward gaining
cross-party approval for this legislation.”