> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.usecroma.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Courts of Japan (裁判例)

> The case law of Japan's courts: search about 68,000 rulings of the Supreme Court, the high courts and the lower courts since 1947, and read any one in full with its original document.

The Supreme Court of Japan publishes the case law the courts select for their reports: the Supreme Court's own judgments and decisions, the high courts' reports, the lower courts' bulletin and the collections of administrative, labour and intellectual property cases, about 68,000 rulings since 1947. Each one here comes with its case number and name, the court and bench, the date, the kind of decision and its outcome, the lower court's decision, the court's own summary and the statutes it cites where the court publishes them, the full text read from the court's document, the document itself as the court published it, and a link to its page at the courts.

Search across every collection at once, by collection, court, case number, year or date, or with free text in Japanese that reaches into the summaries and the body of every ruling.

<Note>
  The whole source, organized and ready to query: every endpoint on this page answers in milliseconds. Every response carries `as_of`: how current the data is. [How datasets work](/datasets).
</Note>

## Search the rulings

`POST /jp/courts-jp/rulings-search/v1` <a className="dataset-pill" href="/datasets">Dataset</a>

One search over every collection of the courts' case law since 1947, filtered by collection, court, case number, year or date.

| Field | Type | Notes |
| - | - | - |
| `query` | string | Optional words in Japanese, matched against the case name, the court's summary, the statutes cited and the text, e.g. `解雇権濫用` or `過払金 返還`. Two or more characters; every word must appear. |
| `collection` | enum | Optional collection: `supreme`, `high`, `lower`, `administrative`, `labor`, `ip` or `ip_high`. |
| `court` | string | Optional court as `court` names it, e.g. `最高裁判所第一小法廷`, `東京高等裁判所`, `大阪地方裁判所`, matched from the start: `最高裁判所` finds every bench. |
| `case_number` | string | Optional case number as the court prints it, e.g. `平成21(オ)257`. Spaces and the width of the characters are ignored. |
| `year` | integer | Optional year of the ruling. 0 searches every year. Default `0`. |
| `from_date` | string | Optional: only rulings handed down on or after this date, `yyyy-mm-dd`. |
| `to_date` | string | Optional: only rulings handed down on or before this date, `yyyy-mm-dd`. |
| `page` | integer | 1-based page number. Default `1`. |
| `per_page` | integer | Results per page (1-50). Default `20`. |

```bash theme={"dark"}
curl https://api.croma.run/jp/courts-jp/rulings-search/v1 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CROMA_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "query": "解雇権濫用", "collection": "supreme" }'
```

Returns `as_of` (how current the data is), the applied filters, `total` and `total_is_exact`, `page`, `per_page`, `total_pages`, `count` and `results[]`, most recent ruling first. Every result carries `id` (the ruling's permanent number at the courts' site, e.g. `93117`), `collections` (`supreme`, `high`, `lower`, `administrative`, `labor`, `ip`, `ip_high`; a ruling can sit in several), `case_number` (e.g. `平成21(オ)257`) and `case_year`, `title` (the case name), `ruling_date` and `ruling_date_japanese`, `year`, `court` (with the bench for the Supreme Court), `branch`, `department`, `judgment_type` (判決, 決定), `result` (棄却, 破棄差戻...), `reporter` (the official reports citation), the lower court's decision (`lower_court`, `lower_case_number`, `lower_ruling_date`, `lower_result`), the court's own summary where it publishes one (`holding` for 判示事項, `gist` for 裁判要旨, `statutes` for 参照法条), `field`, the intellectual property fields (`right_type`, `suit_type`, `ip_case_kind`, `invention`, `issues`, `appeal`, `appeal_result`, `ip_result`), `text_status` (`ok`, `scanned` or `missing`), `official_url` (the ruling's page at the courts), `document_url` (Croma's copy of the court's document, byte for byte as published) and `source_document_url` (the document's own link at the courts). Fields the court does not state are null; the parties' names are never fields.

<Note>
  Search results leave out the text. `query` still matches against it, so a phrase from the body finds the ruling; read the text itself with the Courts of Japan Ruling endpoint.
</Note>

## One ruling, in full

`POST /jp/courts-jp/ruling/v1` <a className="dataset-pill" href="/datasets">Dataset</a>

| Field | Type | Notes |
| - | - | - |
| `ruling_id` | string | **Required.** The ruling's `id` from a search result, e.g. `93117`, or its `official_url`. |
| `offset` | integer | First character of the text to return. Pass the previous response's `next_offset` to read on. Default `0`. |
| `limit` | integer | How many characters of the text to return. Most rulings fit in one response. Default `200000`. |

```bash theme={"dark"}
curl https://api.croma.run/jp/courts-jp/ruling/v1 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CROMA_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "ruling_id": "93117" }'
```

Returns `as_of`, `found`, `ruling_id` and `ruling`, which carries everything the search returns plus `content`: a window onto the ruling's full text, with `text`, `offset`, `total_length`, `has_more` and `next_offset`. Every result carries `id` (the ruling's permanent number at the courts' site, e.g. `93117`), `collections` (`supreme`, `high`, `lower`, `administrative`, `labor`, `ip`, `ip_high`; a ruling can sit in several), `case_number` (e.g. `平成21(オ)257`) and `case_year`, `title` (the case name), `ruling_date` and `ruling_date_japanese`, `year`, `court` (with the bench for the Supreme Court), `branch`, `department`, `judgment_type` (判決, 決定), `result` (棄却, 破棄差戻...), `reporter` (the official reports citation), the lower court's decision (`lower_court`, `lower_case_number`, `lower_ruling_date`, `lower_result`), the court's own summary where it publishes one (`holding` for 判示事項, `gist` for 裁判要旨, `statutes` for 参照法条), `field`, the intellectual property fields (`right_type`, `suit_type`, `ip_case_kind`, `invention`, `issues`, `appeal`, `appeal_result`, `ip_result`), `text_status` (`ok`, `scanned` or `missing`), `official_url` (the ruling's page at the courts), `document_url` (Croma's copy of the court's document, byte for byte as published) and `source_document_url` (the document's own link at the courts). Fields the court does not state are null; the parties' names are never fields.

<Note>
  Long rulings are read a range at a time: send `offset` and `limit`, then pass the response's `next_offset` back as `offset` until `has_more` is false. `content` is null when `text_status` is not `ok`; `document_url` still gives the court's document.
</Note>

<Note>
  An `id` the courts have not published returns `found: false` with HTTP 200, not an error.
</Note>

<Card title="Full reference" icon="code" href="/api-reference/overview">
  Schemas, all response fields, and an interactive playground.
</Card>


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