The State Redress Act sets out when the State or a public entity assumes responsibility to compensate for loss or damage connected with the exercise of public authority or defects in public structures. It is consulted by readers checking whether the statutory text points to Article 1 public-employee conduct, Article 2 public-structure defects, Article 3 cost-bearing entities, or the supplementary rules in Articles 4 through 6. This article explains the six provisions of the Act as verified on e-Gov Law Search and Japanese Law Translation, but it does not evaluate any individual claim or court outcome.
Public Employees Exercising Public Authority
Article 1 deals with loss or damage caused by a public employee in the exercise of public authority. It is the provision to read when the alleged cause is an act performed by a public employee in the course of official duties, rather than a road, river, or other public structure.
Article 1(1) states the core rule: when a public employee who exercises the public authority of the State or of a public entity, in the course of their duties, unlawfully causes loss or damage to another person intentionally or negligently, the State or public entity assumes responsibility to compensate. The provision therefore contains several separate statutory elements in one sentence: the actor must be a public employee, the act must be connected with the exercise of public authority, it must occur in the course of duties, the conduct must be unlawful, and the loss or damage must be caused intentionally or negligently. The Act itself does not define a litigation procedure for proving those elements; Article 1 states the compensation rule that later proceedings or related laws may need to apply.
Article 1(2) then separates the outward compensation rule from the internal reimbursement issue. If the State or public entity has compensated under Article 1(1), and the public employee had intent or gross negligence, the State or public entity has the right to obtain reimbursement from that public employee. The statutory text does not make every compensated case a reimbursement case. It names intent or gross negligence as the condition for that reimbursement rule.
Roads, Rivers, and Other Public Structures
Article 2 shifts the focus from conduct by an individual public employee to the condition of a public structure. It names roads and rivers as examples, then extends the rule to other public structures.
Article 2(1) provides that when loss or damage to another person is caused because of a defect in the placement or administration of a road, river, or other public structure, the State or public entity assumes responsibility to compensate. Compared with Article 1, the provision is organized around the public structure and the defect in its placement or administration. The phrase "road, river, or other public structure" is important because the listed examples are not the full category; the statute uses them to introduce a broader class of public structures. The operative question under the text is not whether a named public employee acted intentionally or negligently, but whether the loss or damage was caused because of a defect in the public structure's placement or administration.
Article 2(2) adds a reimbursement rule for the structure context. If another person should assume responsibility for the cause of the loss or damage, the State or public entity has the right to obtain reimbursement from that person. This mirrors Article 1(2) in structure but not in wording. Article 1(2) refers to intent or gross negligence of the public employee, while Article 2(2) refers to another person who should assume responsibility for the cause of the loss or damage.
Cost-Bearing Entities and Internal Reimbursement
Article 3 addresses the situation where the entity responsible for appointment, supervision, installation, or administration differs from the entity bearing the relevant costs. It is not a separate basis tied to a new type of accident; it operates when responsibility to compensate already arises under Article 1 or Article 2.
Article 3(1) provides that, when the State or a public entity assumes responsibility under the preceding two Articles, the person bearing certain costs also assumes responsibility if that person differs from the person responsible for appointment or supervision of public employees, or for installation or administration of public structures. The listed costs include salaries, remuneration, and other expenses of public employees, as well as costs for the placement or administration of public structures. The provision therefore connects the compensation rule to fiscal responsibility where administrative control and cost bearing are divided.
Article 3(2) then supplies an internal reimbursement rule. When a person has compensated for the loss or damage under Article 3(1), that person has the right to obtain reimbursement from the person liable to compensate for the loss or damage based on internal relationships. The statutory phrase "internal relationships" matters because Article 3 is about allocating responsibility among public-side entities after the outward compensation issue has been addressed. The article does not rank all possible public entities in the abstract; it identifies a reimbursement route where a cost-bearing person and the person responsible in the internal relationship are different.
Civil Code, Other Acts, and Foreign Victims
Articles 4 through 6 state how the State Redress Act interacts with other legal rules. These provisions do not add another factual category like public-employee conduct or public-structure defects, but they affect which legal source governs the responsibility to compensate.
Article 4 provides that the State's or a public entity's responsibility to compensate for loss or damage is, in addition to being pursuant to Articles 1 through 3, pursuant to the Civil Code. This keeps the Act from standing alone as a complete private-law code for compensation. The article points readers to the Civil Code for matters not resolved by the first three provisions, while preserving the specific statutory rules stated in the State Redress Act.
Article 5 gives priority to other Acts outside the Civil Code where those Acts provide otherwise for the State's or a public entity's responsibility to compensate for loss or damage. The article is a conflict rule: if an Act other than the Civil Code contains a different rule on that responsibility, the other Act's rule applies according to its terms. Article 6 is narrower. It provides that, when the victim is a foreign national, the State Redress Act applies only when a mutual guarantee exists. The text does not define the method for determining mutual guarantee; it states the condition as part of the Act's scope of application.