Law of Japan

Japan’s legal system is built on codified statutes and legal codes, though judicial precedents also carry significant weight. It follows the civil law tradition, structured around six major codes that were shaped primarily by German law, with additional French influence, and later adjusted to fit Japanese conditions. The postwar Constitution stands as the highest legal authority, and an independent judiciary can strike down laws or government actions that violate it.

In early Japan, legal principles were heavily drawn from Chinese law. Before the seventh century, when the Ritsuryō system was first written down, little is known about Japanese law. The Japanese had no writing system of their own before adopting Chinese characters, a process that began around the early centuries CE, though the precise start date is not firmly established. This borrowing of continental culture came largely through Korean kingdoms rather than directly from China. Confucianism arrived in 284–285, while Buddhism was officially introduced in 552 AD (or 538 AD according to some sources), deeply embedding ideas of social harmony over individual rights. Scholars David, Zweigert, and Kotz note that Confucian emphasis on group cohesion made Japanese society favor compromise and conciliation over litigation.

Immigration into Japan likely increased due to political turmoil in Korea and China, bringing refugees that included officials and skilled workers who were integrated into the court’s rank system—a system they themselves introduced. It is possible, though unconfirmed, that other legal institutions were also transplanted piecemeal, marking the first foreign legal influence on Japan. At this stage, Japanese law was unwritten and informal, yet society still operated under some form of regulation. Clues come from Chinese histories, notably *The Record on the Men of Wa* in the Wei History, which describes the Yamatai state ruled by Queen Himiko in the second and third centuries. According to this account, indigenous law was clan-based: each clan, led by a chief, protected members’ rights and enforced duties with occasional punishments. Court law organized these chiefs into a power structure to control society through the clan system. The exact form of these laws is unclear, but they appear to have been unofficial and indigenous, with no clear central authority.