# 人事訴訟法 / Personal Status Litigation Act — 第二十条 (Article 20)

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- Law: 人事訴訟法 (Personal Status Litigation Act), 平成十五年法律第百九号
- English title "Personal Status Litigation 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: 第二十条 (Article 20)（職権探知） — address `art-20`
- Text in force since: 2026-06-24
- URL (the page that opens at this provision): https://japanlaw.org/en/personal-status-litigation-act/art-20
- Permanent URL (e-Gov law ID, never renamed): https://japanlaw.org/l/415AC0000000109/art-20
- 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.

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### 第二十条（職権探知） — (Examination Sua Sponte)
<sup>caption: Ministry of Justice translation with a slip corrected by this site — not the Ministry's text; the Ministry printed: "(Examination Sua Sponteity)" — https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/5166/tb</sup>
<sup>art-20 · https://japanlaw.org/en/personal-status-litigation-act/art-20 · https://japanlaw.org/l/415AC0000000109/art-20</sup>

  **第一項**  人事訴訟においては、裁判所は、当事者が主張しない事実をしん酌し、かつ、職権で証拠調べをすることができる。この場合においては、裁判所は、その事実及び証拠調べの結果について当事者の意見を聴かなければならない。
  <sup>art-20/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/en/personal-status-litigation-act/art-20/par-1 · https://japanlaw.org/l/415AC0000000109/art-20/par-1</sup>
  In personal status litigation, the court may take facts which are not asserted by the parties into consideration and examine evidence on its own authority. In that case, the court must hear the opinions of the parties regarding the facts and the results of the examination of the evidence.
  <sup>Ministry of Justice translation — Japanese Law Translation Database System</sup>

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## Sources

- claude-opus-5-5 — Corrections to the Ministry of Justice's English of the Personal Status Litigation Act, written 2026-11-03
- e-Gov 法令検索, Digital Agency (デジタル庁) — 人事訴訟法 — the text in force from 2026-06-24 (https://laws.e-gov.go.jp/law/415AC0000000109/20260624_508AC0000000046), retrieved 2026-11-02
- Japanese Law Translation Database System, Ministry of Justice (法務省) — Personal Status Litigation Act (人事訴訟法), Article 20 — the Ministry of Justice's English as printed (https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/5166/tb), retrieved 2026-11-02
- Japanese Law Translation Database System, Ministry of Justice (法務省) — Personal Status Litigation Act — Ministry of Justice translation (https://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/en/laws/view/5166/tb), retrieved 2026-11-02
- This site's parser, version 220 — 人事訴訟法 — structure, counts, cross-references and defined terms, computed 2026-11-02