Japanese Legal System: Acts, Cabinet Orders, and Ordinances

Japanese law is structured around a clear hierarchy of legislative instruments, each with a defined scope of authority. Understanding this hierarchy is a prerequisite for reading any Japanese statute: when a provision in an Act says "as prescribed by Cabinet Order," that Cabinet Order is not optional annotation — it is the place where the enforceable rule actually lives. This guide explains the main types of Japanese legislation, how they relate to each other, and how to find them.

The Legislative Hierarchy

Japan's legislative structure descends from the Constitution at the top through Acts, Cabinet Orders, and Ministerial Ordinances to municipal ordinances at the local level. Each level may only exercise authority delegated to it by the level above, and lower-level instruments cannot contradict higher-level ones.

The hierarchy, in order of authority, is as follows.

Administrative circulars (通達, tsūtatsu) sit outside this hierarchy — they are not legislation — but are discussed below because of their practical importance.

Acts (法律)

Acts are the primary source of substantive Japanese law and the instrument most commonly encountered in legal practice. An Act is enacted by a majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors, then promulgated by the Emperor. The National Diet is the sole organ of the state with the power to enact Acts; no other body can create law at this level.

Acts set the policy, define key terms, establish regulatory frameworks, and specify penalties. Where technical or frequently changing details are better handled by delegated instruments, Acts include provisions authorising Cabinet Orders or Ministerial Ordinances to fill in those details. This delegation is explicit — a phrase such as "as prescribed by Cabinet Order" (政令で定めるところにより) is the signal that a Cabinet Order exists and must be consulted alongside the Act.

An example: the Companies Act (会社法, Act No. 86 of 2005) establishes the rules for incorporating and operating companies in Japan. Its provisions on accounting are supplemented by the Company Accounting Rules (会社計算規則), a Ministerial Ordinance issued by the Ministry of Justice.

Cabinet Orders (政令)

Cabinet Orders are issued by the Cabinet and have the force of law below Acts. Most Cabinet Orders are "delegated" — meaning they exist specifically because an Act authorised the Cabinet to prescribe certain matters by Cabinet Order. A Cabinet Order cannot override or contradict the Act under which it is made.

In practice, the most important type of Cabinet Order is the Enforcement Order (施行令, shikō-rei). Almost every major Act has a corresponding Enforcement Order — for example, the Accounting Act (会計法) has the Budget, Settlement of Accounts, and Accounting Order (予算決算及び会計令). Reading an Act without its Enforcement Order typically leaves the practical mechanics unresolved.

A small category of Cabinet Orders exist based on the Cabinet's direct constitutional authority rather than statutory delegation, but these are less common in day-to-day legal work.

Ministerial Ordinances and Cabinet Office Ordinances (省令・府令)

Ministerial Ordinances are issued by individual government ministers — the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Finance, and so on — under authority delegated either by an Act or by a Cabinet Order. They handle the most detailed and technical aspects of a regulatory scheme: forms, procedures, numerical thresholds, technical standards.

The Enforcement Regulations (施行規則, shikō-kisoku) are the most common type: a Ministerial Ordinance tied to a specific Act and its Enforcement Order, rounding out the three-level cluster that governs most regulated activities.

Cabinet Office Ordinances (府令) occupy the same tier as Ministerial Ordinances but are issued by the Cabinet Office itself rather than a line ministry. They often govern matters that cut across multiple ministries.

Rules (規則)

The term "rules" covers several types of subordinate legislation issued by bodies with constitutional or statutory rule-making authority. Supreme Court Rules (最高裁判所規則) govern court procedure. National Personnel Authority Rules (人事院規則) govern the employment conditions of national public servants. Diet Rules (議院規則) govern each chamber's internal proceedings. Each of these has authority only within its designated domain.

Municipal Ordinances (条例)

Prefectural and municipal assemblies can enact ordinances within their jurisdictions, subject to not contradicting national legislation. Municipal ordinances are a significant source of law in areas such as environmental standards, land use, and consumer protection — often setting stricter standards than national rules.

Administrative Circulars (通達): Not Law, But Practically Significant

Administrative circulars are internal instructions issued by a superior administrative body to its subordinate agencies directing how to apply a statute or policy. They are not legislation and are not legally binding on the public — a court does not have to follow them, and a private party's compliance or non-compliance with a circular does not, by itself, establish lawfulness or unlawfulness.

In practice, however, circulars are significant because administrative agencies generally apply statutes in accordance with them. For anyone dealing with a Japanese ministry or agency — applying for permits, responding to an inspection, or managing tax filings — understanding the relevant circular often matters as much as reading the statute itself. Circulars are not published on the national legislation database; they are typically found on individual ministry websites or through official disclosure requests.

How Delegation Works in Practice

The delegation chain is easiest to understand through an example. Suppose a company needs to understand the rules for handling a particular type of waste under Japan's environmental legislation. The Waste Management and Public Cleansing Act sets the basic framework and delegates details to Cabinet Order. The Cabinet Order issued under that Act defines categories and numerical standards, delegating further technical specifications to Ministerial Ordinance. The Ministerial Ordinance specifies the forms and procedures. None of these three instruments is independently complete — each presupposes the others.

This structure means that "reading the Act" is rarely sufficient. Practitioners and compliance officers working with Japanese law must routinely identify and read the full cluster: Act, Enforcement Order, and Enforcement Regulations, plus any relevant circulars.

How to Find Japanese Laws

The primary official source for Japanese statutory text is the e-Gov Law Search database, maintained by the Digital Agency. Full statutory text, including consolidated post-amendment versions of most Acts, Cabinet Orders, and Ministerial Ordinances, is available free of charge.

elaws.jp provides access to the same underlying legislation with a streamlined interface. Law IDs used on elaws.jp correspond directly to the e-Gov system and can be used to construct permanent deep-links to individual statutes.

Official English translations of major Acts are published on the Japan Law Translation Database (JLT), maintained by the Ministry of Justice. These translations are not legally authoritative — the Japanese text governs — but they are a useful starting point for foreign practitioners. Coverage is uneven: many Acts have translations, but Enforcement Orders and Ministerial Ordinances are less consistently covered, and translations may lag behind recent amendments.