Courts

Tokyo District Court

Citation Formats

General Reference

Law Atlas. "Tokyo District Court." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://law.interactiveatlas.org/courts/tokyo-district-court.

APA Style

Law Atlas. (n.d.). Tokyo District Court. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://law.interactiveatlas.org/courts/tokyo-district-court

BibTeX

@misc{lawatlas-tokyo-district-court,
  author = {Law Atlas},
  title = {Tokyo District Court},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://law.interactiveatlas.org/courts/tokyo-district-court},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The Tokyo District Court is a court of first instance within Japan's judiciary, hearing major civil, criminal and administrative matters arising in the Tokyo area. It has authority under Article 81 of Japan's Religious Corporations Act to rule on a government petition to dissolve a religious corporation's legal status, a power previously exercised only against Aum Shinrikyo and, on narrower grounds, against Myokakuji temple. On March 25, 2025, the court used this authority for the first time on civil tort grounds rather than a criminal conviction, ordering the dissolution of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, formerly known as the Unification Church.

Facts

Seat

Tokyo 1

Jurisdiction Scope

General first-instance jurisdiction over major civil, criminal and administrative cases arising in the Tokyo metropolitan area, including corporate-dissolution petitions against religious corporations under Article 81 of the Religious Corporations Act. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections