SAKURA Law Office is pleased to announce the publication of a new column by Naoki Kanayama, an attorney at our firm, entitled "Final Appeals to the Supreme Court of Japan - We Accept Representation in Supreme Court Appeal Matters." In the column, Kanayama examines the framework governing civil final appeals and petitions for acceptance of final appeal to the Supreme Court of Japan, as well as the role counsel must play in Supreme Court appellate practice, from his own theoretical and practical perspective. The full text of the column appears below.

Final Appeals to the Supreme Court of Japan

We Accept Representation in Supreme Court Appeal Matters

After a party loses in the High Court, counsel will often say something along the lines of, "This is probably the point to stop. A final appeal to the Supreme Court is, as a practical matter, unlikely to succeed." Hearing that, the losing party may understandably feel that there is no choice but to give up. Even if the party nevertheless wishes to pursue Supreme Court review, finding a new lawyer willing to take on the matter is, particularly in civil cases, not easy in practice.

1. Final Appeals: A "Narrow Gate"?

There is a reason why lawyers often say that a final appeal is unlikely to succeed and why relatively few lawyers actively take on Supreme Court appeal matters: the Supreme Court declines to accept the overwhelming majority of petitions for acceptance of final appeal. Many cases are, figuratively speaking, "turned away at the gate."

The Constitution guarantees the right of access to the courts (Article 32). Yet the grounds on which a final appeal may be permitted are a matter of appellate structure and, except insofar as Article 81 of the Constitution requires constitutional review, are left to legislative determination. The Supreme Court has explained the restrictions on grounds for final appeal under Articles 312 and 318 of the Code of Civil Procedure in this manner (Third Petty Bench, Supreme Court, judgment of February 13, 2001, Saibanshu Minji No. 201, p. 95; Hanrei Jiho No. 1745, p. 94).

In practical terms, the current Code of Civil Procedure principally provides two paths to the Supreme Court: (i) a final appeal and (ii) a petition for acceptance of final appeal. A final appeal may be brought on grounds such as a constitutional violation or certain serious procedural violations. In ordinary civil litigation, however, the path more frequently at issue is the petition for acceptance of final appeal.

2. The Petition for Acceptance of Final Appeal

A petition for acceptance of final appeal is, quite literally, a "narrow gate." According to the Supreme Court's statistics for civil petitions for acceptance of final appeal in 2024, 2,456 new cases were filed and 2,397 cases were disposed of during the year. Of the disposed cases, 2,356 ended in an order denying acceptance, representing approximately 98.3% of all disposed cases. Because the new cases and disposed cases do not constitute the same cohort, these figures cannot be used to calculate a precise "acceptance rate" for individual petitions. Even so, the statistics make plain that only a very limited number of cases proceed to substantive Supreme Court review - in other words, the gate is indeed narrow.

Why is the gate so narrow? The answer lies in the structure of the petition-for-acceptance system under the Code of Civil Procedure. Article 318(1) provides, in substance, that the Supreme Court may, upon petition, accept as the final appellate court a case in which the judgment below conflicts with Supreme Court precedent or any other case found to involve matters of material import in the interpretation of laws and regulations. In short, the Supreme Court decides whether to accept a case that presents a sufficiently important question of legal interpretation.

3. Filing Deadlines

A losing party also faces a strict filing deadline. To file a final appeal or petition for acceptance of final appeal from a High Court judgment, the petition must, as a general rule, be filed within two weeks, calculated from the day following the date on which the authenticated copy of the judgment is served or deemed to have been served.

For example, if the authenticated copy of the judgment is served on August 20 and no special rule concerning weekends or holidays affects the last day of the period, the filing must be completed by September 3. The initial petition itself may be relatively concise in form, but the party must make a difficult decision within a short time against the reality that a petition for acceptance of final appeal is an exceptionally narrow gate.

A further deadline follows after the petition for final appeal or petition for acceptance of final appeal is filed. If the grounds are not stated in the initial petition, a statement of grounds for final appeal or a statement of reasons for the petition for acceptance of final appeal must, as a general rule, be filed within 50 days, calculated from the day following the date on which the prescribed court notice is received or deemed received.

In short, the party generally has only two weeks to decide whether to pursue Supreme Court review. Once that decision is made, counsel must prepare and file the substantive statement of grounds or reasons within the limited period that follows. A final appeal is truly a race against time.

4. Counsel Who Knocks on the Narrow Gate

Although the prospects of acceptance are extremely limited, they are not zero. A ray of light remains. Whether a case will be accepted cannot be reduced to statistics or probability alone; what matters is how persuasively the written reasons demonstrate that the case contains a "matter of material import in the interpretation of laws and regulations."

In the District Courts and High Courts, much of the litigation is devoted to disputes over facts. The Supreme Court, by contrast, is a court of law: it proceeds on the facts found by the High Court and examines questions such as constitutional violations, the relationship to precedent, and significant issues of legal interpretation. It is therefore not enough simply to argue that "the first- and second-instance courts got the facts wrong."

Facts are indispensable in any litigation. But what is required at the Supreme Court stage is the ability to elevate those facts into a sophisticated legal question and reconstruct them as a legal argument. In that sense, it is no exaggeration to say that sophisticated legal analysis is everything. This is precisely why Supreme Court practice calls for theory-driven lawyers with deep command of constitutional law, procedure, and precedent - lawyers who bring the analytical rigor of legal scholars to litigation.

5. The Role of Supreme Court Judicial Research Officials

How, then, are statements of grounds for final appeal and statements of reasons for petitions for acceptance of final appeal examined at the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court has Judicial Research Officials who research appellate matters and assist the Justices in their deliberations. In civil matters as well, a limited number of Judicial Research Officials must examine a very large number of cases.

Counsel handling a Supreme Court matter must engage the intellect of these heavily burdened Judicial Research Officials and capture their attention - at a minimum, the written submission should enable the reader to understand at first glance what the legal issue in the case actually is. For example, the opening should state clearly and concisely which legal determination in the judgment below conflicts with existing precedent, or what material question of legal interpretation the case presents. Beyond that clarity, of course, the writing must carry genuine analytical depth and persuasive force.

6. A Written Submission That Can Open the Narrow Gate

When criticizing the judgment below, the strongest entry point is often a demonstrable conflict with Supreme Court precedent. Yet many difficult cases do not present an obvious conflict. Sometimes the party lost precisely because the High Court applied existing precedent or prevailing doctrine in a conventional way.

In such a case, the written submission must construct a theory capable of going beyond precedent and prevailing doctrine. It requires the ability to view case law and scholarship within their broader structure, identify the principle that runs through them, and then chart a path by which precedent can be further developed from that principle. At times, it may even be necessary to formulate and present a new legal theory.

What becomes important here is the dynamic perspective of the "development of law (the creative evolution of law)." Legal development always takes place against a background of social change. The written submission should identify those changes and articulate a clear vision: as society evolves, precedent must sometimes be reconsidered and the law allowed to develop with it.

Supreme Court judgments also carry policy implications that extend beyond the resolution of the individual dispute. A written submission should therefore consider how the proposed interpretation will affect society and how it relates to current social developments. Ultimately, the question may reach as far as the social vision behind the law: what kind of society do we want the law to help create?

Preparing a submission of this kind requires persistence, analytical development, and the ability to conceive the argument as a whole.

7. How SAKURA Law Office Handles Supreme Court Appeal Matters

If you lose in the High Court, discuss the next steps with your current counsel and, at the same time, contact SAKURA Law Office as early as possible. Because the deadlines for the petition for final appeal or petition for acceptance of final appeal continue to run, we first review the High Court judgment and the procedural history and assess whether there is a meaningful basis for Supreme Court review.

For the client, the central concern will naturally be whether the result can be reversed in the Supreme Court. No responsible lawyer can promise that. But after reviewing the record, we will tell you as candidly as possible whether there is a significant legal issue that should be presented to the Supreme Court and whether there is a meaningful basis to continue the fight. You can then decide whether to entrust the matter to our firm.

If we accept the matter, the responsible lawyer will read the entire record from the first and second instances afresh, from a zero-based perspective. We also place great importance on client meetings and, where necessary, will speak with the client directly as many times as needed in order to identify the true core of the case. Supreme Court appellate work demands that level of concentration and effort.

SAKURA Law Office includes lawyers with prior judicial experience and Naoki Kanayama, Attorney at law and Professor Emeritus at Keio University, who has spent many years engaged in legal scholarship and education. Our aim is to examine the High Court judgment critically from both the perspective of judicial practice and the perspective of legal theory, and to prepare statements of grounds for final appeal and statements of reasons for petitions for acceptance of final appeal to the highest standard we can achieve.

We cannot, however, guarantee that a petition will be accepted or that the judgment below will be quashed. If, after examining the record, we conclude that there is insufficient legal basis to pursue Supreme Court review, we will tell you so candidly.

The deadline for Supreme Court review advances day by day. If you find yourself asking, "Is this really where the case should end?" please contact us as soon as possible.

Contact Regarding Supreme Court Appeal Matters

For consultations concerning civil final appeals to the Supreme Court, petitions for acceptance of final appeal, preparation of statements of grounds for final appeal or statements of reasons for petitions for acceptance of final appeal, representation beginning at the Supreme Court stage, or related matters, please contact SAKURA Law Office.

When contacting us, please indicate that your inquiry concerns a Supreme Court appeal matter and provide, to the extent known, the date of the High Court judgment, the date on which the authenticated copy of the judgment was served, whether you are currently represented by counsel, and any other relevant information. If a statutory filing deadline is approaching, please state that expressly.

Please note that contacting our firm or requesting a legal consultation does not suspend or extend any statutory period for filing a final appeal or a petition for acceptance of final appeal. If a deadline is approaching, please also confirm it immediately with your current counsel or with the court that rendered the judgment.

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Managing Partner: Kenshiro Michishita

The statutory and statistical descriptions above have been checked against the Code of Civil Procedure, the Rules of Civil Procedure, and materials published by the courts. The 2024 figures are based on the Supreme Court of Japan's Report on the Verification of Efforts to Expedite Court Proceedings (11th Report), including data on new and disposed civil petitions for acceptance of final appeal. Because the new cases and disposed cases do not constitute the same cohort, these figures cannot be used to calculate a precise acceptance rate for individual cases.