Supreme Court Justices on Ballot in Japan; Public Interest Rising in Vote to Retain or Dismiss

By Shinnosuke Nakagawa / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

2:00 JST, February 7, 2026

Public interest is intensifying in the upcoming national review of Supreme Court justices, scheduled for Sunday alongside the House of Representatives election, to determine if the justices are fit to remain in their roles.

Although some critics argue that the review has become a hollow ritual, the previous election saw the percentage of votes seeking to dismiss justices surpass 10% for the first time in 34 years. Attention is now focused on both the results and voting patterns.

The names of the justices undergoing review are pre-printed on the ballots. Voters wishing to oust a justice place an “X” in the box above that individual’s name. Any justice who receives X marks on a majority of the valid ballots will be dismissed from the bench.

Dismissal rate peaked at 15%

A total of 196 justices have been scrutinized in 26 reviews since the first one in 1949, but not a single justice has been dismissed by voters.

The highest dismissal rate ever recorded for an individual justice was 15.17% in the 1972 review. This rate represents the percentage of dismissal votes among the total number of valid ballots.

While the overall dismissal rate for all justices topped 10% in reviews from 1972 to 1990, it consistently stayed in the single digits from 1993 until just recently.

Signs of change

A shift in the long-standing trend of single-digit dismissal rates emerged during the 2021 review.

Just four months before the vote, the Supreme Court’s Grand Bench issued a ruling in a case that contested the constitutionality of the Civil Code. The court upheld the provisions and other statutes that require married couples to use the same surname, ruling them constitutional.

Four of the justices who upheld the constitutionality of the surname rule were among those being reviewed. On social media, groups advocating for a system allowing selective separate surnames urged voters to cast dismissal ballots against these four individuals.

While the average dismissal rate for all justices stood at 6.78%, the figures for these four individuals alone exceeded 7%.

Similar movements were observed online during the previous review in 2024. Posts such as “Let’s change the Supreme Court” circulated, encouraging voters to mark “X” against certain justices by citing their decisions in specific court cases.

Four of the six justices subject to the 2024 review had dismissal rates exceeding 10%. The overall dismissal rate also surpassed the 10% mark for the first time in 34 years.

Some within the judicial community suggested that the NHK morning drama series “Tora ni Tsubasa” (The Tiger and Her Wings), which centered on a pioneering female judge, also played a role in fueling public interest in the judiciary.

Scarce information

The upcoming review is being held only about 15 months after the previous one. Two justices are subject to the process this time: Junichi Takasu, 66, and Masami Okino, 62, both of whom have served for less than a year since their appointments.

It is undeniable that voters have scant information for making their decisions, given that neither justice has participated in many significant cases.

“There is a tendency for high public interest in the judiciary to be directly proportional to dismissal rates,” said Prof. Shinichi Nishikawa of Meiji University, who is an expert on the national review system.

According to Nishikawa, official communication to the public remains inadequate, but interest has been stirred in recent years because citizens can now easily gather and share information themselves on social media.

“This is a vital opportunity for the public to directly exercise oversight of the judiciary,” he said.

“Voters should head to the polls after learning as much as possible about the careers and personal beliefs of the justices through official review bulletins and media reports,” Nishikawa said.