# 労働契約法 / Labor Contracts Act — 第十五条 (Article 15) This is the Markdown twin of https://japanlaw.org/en/labor-contracts-act/art-15. Every law, and how to address a provision: https://japanlaw.org/llms.txt. The same laws as MCP tools (no sign-in): https://japanlaw.org/mcp. - Law: 労働契約法 (Labor Contracts Act), 平成十九年法律第百二十八号 - English title "Labor Contracts Act": 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: 第十五条 (Article 15)（懲戒） — address `art-15` - Text in force since: 2020-04-01 - URL (the page that opens at this provision): https://japanlaw.org/en/labor-contracts-act/art-15 - Permanent URL (e-Gov law ID, never renamed): https://japanlaw.org/l/419AC0000000128/art-15 - 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. --- ### 第十五条（懲戒） — (Disciplinary Action) caption: Ministry of Justice translation — Japanese Law Translation Database System art-15 · https://japanlaw.org/en/labor-contracts-act/art-15 · https://japanlaw.org/l/419AC0000000128/art-15 **第一項** 使用者が労働者を懲戒することができる場合において、当該懲戒が、当該懲戒に係る労働者の行為の性質及び態様その他の事情に照らして、客観的に合理的な理由を欠き、社会通念上相当であると認められない場合は、その権利を濫用したものとして、当該懲戒は、無効とする。 art-15/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/en/labor-contracts-act/art-15/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/l/419AC0000000128/art-15/par-1 If an Employer may take disciplinary action against a Worker, and such disciplinary action lacks objectively reasonable grounds and is not found to be appropriate in general societal terms in light of the characteristics and mode of the act committed by the Worker pertaining to such disciplinary action and any other circumstances, such disciplinary order is treated as an abuse of rights and is invalid. Ministry of Justice translation with a slip corrected by this site — not the Ministry's text; the Ministry printed: "If an Employer may take disciplinary action against a Worker, and such disciplinary action lacks objectively reasonable grounds and is not found to be appropriate in general societal terms in light of the characteristics and mode of the act committed by the Worker pertaining to such disciplinary action and any other circumstances, such disciplinary order is be treated as an abuse of rights and is invalid." — https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3744/tb ## Cited by 1 provision cites this one. No official source publishes this direction. - 公益通報者保護法 第八条第三項（解釈規定） — https://japanlaw.org/en/whistleblower-protection-act/art-8/par-3 · https://japanlaw.org/l/416AC0000000122/art-8/par-3 --- ## Sources - claude-opus-5-5 — Corrections to the Ministry of Justice's English of paragraphs, written 2026-10-05 - e-Gov 法令検索, Digital Agency (デジタル庁) — 労働契約法 — the text in force from 2020-04-01 (https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/419AC0000000128/20200401_430AC0000000071), retrieved 2026-09-10 - Japanese Law Translation Database System, Ministry of Justice (法務省) — Labor Contracts Act (労働契約法), Article 15, paragraph (1) — the Ministry of Justice's English as printed (https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3744/tb), retrieved 2026-09-10 - Japanese Law Translation Database System, Ministry of Justice (法務省) — Labor Contracts Act — Ministry of Justice translation (https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/3744/tb), retrieved 2026-09-10 - This site's parser, version 211 — 労働契約法 — structure, counts, cross-references and defined terms, computed 2026-09-10