Overview

• The Sendai High Court opened and closed the first hearing on lawsuits over July’s Upper House vote-value gaps and scheduled a November 7 verdict.
• Plaintiffs point to a maximum 3.13-fold disparity in voter weight, slightly higher than the 3.03 ratio the Supreme Court deemed constitutional in 2022.
• Tokyo prosecutors’ special investigations unit has decided to file an at-home indictment of former Upper House member Akira Ishii over roughly ¥8 million in alleged public secretary salary fraud, with investigators citing a no-work arrangement tied to a relative.
• Policy chiefs from the LDP, Komeito and the Constitutional Democratic Party were to meet September 30 to begin designing a tax-credit with cash benefits, including funding options and overseas models, as the opposition presses for an early extraordinary Diet session.
• Aichi’s Togo town council unanimously passed a harassment-prevention and elimination ordinance covering top officials, council members and staff, to take effect January 1, 2026, while a last-minute rush in hometown tax donations strained suppliers, including one day with 80,000 hamburger orders in Saga.