# 民法 / Civil Code — 第七百十二条 (Article 712) - Law: 民法 (Civil Code), 明治二十九年法律第八十九号 - English title "Civil Code": Ministry of Justice translation - Kind: Act — the distinction between 法律 (Act), 政令 (Cabinet Order), 省令 (Ministerial Order) and 条例 (local ordinance) decides who may issue it and what it may say. - Provision: 第七百十二条 (Article 712)（責任能力） — address `art-712` - Text in force since: 2026-06-24 - URL (the page that opens at this provision): https://japanlaw.org/en/civil-code/art-712 - Permanent URL (e-Gov law ID, never renamed): https://japanlaw.org/l/129AC0000000089/art-712 - Every provision below carries its address and both URLs on the line under it. - Japanese text: e-Gov 法令検索, Digital Agency (デジタル庁). English: as marked on each line below. Only the Japanese as published by the government has legal effect; the text below is a copy of it. Every English rendering below is a translation and says which kind: the Ministry of Justice's translation, or this site's machine translation, whose model and date the Sources list names. They are never merged and never substituted for one another. --- ### 第七百十二条（責任能力） — (Capacity for Liability) caption: Ministry of Justice translation — Japanese Law Translation Database System art-712 · https://japanlaw.org/en/civil-code/art-712 · https://japanlaw.org/l/129AC0000000089/art-712 **第一項** 未成年者は、他人に損害を加えた場合において、自己の行為の責任を弁識するに足りる知能を備えていなかったときは、その行為について賠償の責任を負わない。 art-712/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/en/civil-code/art-712/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/l/129AC0000000089/art-712/par-1 If a minor has inflicted damage on another person but did not have sufficient intellectual capacity to appreciate their own liability for that act, that minor is not liable to compensate for that act. Ministry of Justice translation — Japanese Law Translation Database System ## Cited by 1 provision cites this one. No official source publishes this direction. - 民法 第七百十四条第一項（責任無能力者の監督義務者等の責任） — https://japanlaw.org/en/civil-code/art-714/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/l/129AC0000000089/art-714/par-1 --- ## Sources - e-Gov 法令検索, Digital Agency (デジタル庁) — 民法 — the text in force from 2026-06-24 (https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/129AC0000000089/20260624_508AC0000000045), retrieved 2026-10-11 - Japanese Law Translation Database System, Ministry of Justice (法務省) — Civil Code — Ministry of Justice translation (part 1 of 2) (https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/4848/tb), retrieved 2026-10-11 - This site's parser, version 190 — 民法 — structure, counts, cross-references and defined terms, computed 2026-10-11