Japanese Bar Examination QA Dataset

Dataset Summary

This dataset contains question-answer pairs from the Japanese Bar Examination (司法試験, Shihou Shiken) spanning from 2015 to 2024. It covers three major areas of Japanese law: Criminal Law (刑法), Constitutional Law (憲法), and Civil Law (民法).

The dataset is designed for binary classification tasks, where each question requires a True/False answer based on Japanese legal principles and precedents.

Dataset Details

Total Questions: 2,846
Time Period: 2015-2024 (10 years)
Languages: Japanese
Task: Binary classification (True/False questions)
Domains: Legal, specifically Japanese law

Data Fields

id: Unique identifier for each question (format: year-subject-question_number-sub_number)
year: Examination year in Japanese era format (e.g., "令和元年", "平成２７年")
subject: Legal subject in English (Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Civil Law)
subject_jp: Legal subject in Japanese (刑法, 憲法, 民法)
theme: Specific legal topic/theme in Japanese
question_type: Type of question (CSQ, MRQ, TFQ)
instruction: Special instructions for answering (48.2% of questions have instructions)
question: Question text in Japanese
label: Original label (Y for True, N for False)
answer: Standardized answer (True/False)

Data Splits

The dataset is split into three parts:

Train: 2,276 questions (80%) - 1,099 with instructions
Validation: 284 questions (10%) - 139 with instructions
Test: 286 questions (10%) - 135 with instructions

Subject Distribution

Subject	Count	Percentage
Civil Law (民法)	1,758	61.8%
Criminal Law (刑法)	549	19.3%
Constitutional Law (憲法)	539	18.9%

Answer Distribution

Answer	Count	Percentage
False	1,502	52.8%
True	1,344	47.2%

Instruction Field

48.2% of questions (1,373 out of 2,846) contain special instructions for answering. Common instructions include:

"判例の趣旨に照らし" (In light of judicial precedent) - 1,040 occurrences
"判例の立場に従って検討" (Examine according to judicial position) - 109 occurrences
"判例の立場に従って検討し" (Examine according to judicial position and) - 55 occurrences

Question Types

CSQ: Choice of Single Question - 2,080 questions (73.1%)
MRQ: Multiple Response Question - 448 questions (15.7%)
TFQ: True/False Question - 318 questions (11.2%)

Usage Examples

Loading the Dataset

from datasets import load_dataset

dataset = load_dataset("nguyenthanhasia/japanese-bar-exam-qa")

# Access different splits
train_data = dataset["train"]
validation_data = dataset["validation"]
test_data = dataset["test"]

Example Data Point

{
    "id": "令和３年-民法-24-3",
    "year": "令和３年",
    "subject": "Civil Law",
    "subject_jp": "民法",
    "theme": "贈与",
    "question_type": "CSQ",
    "instruction": "判例の趣旨に照らし",
    "question": "受贈者は,贈与契約が書面によらない場合であっても,履行の終わっていない部分について贈与契約を解除することができない。",
    "label": "N",
    "answer": "False"
}

Applications

This dataset can be used for:

Legal NLP Research: Developing models for Japanese legal text understanding
Question Answering Systems: Building legal consultation chatbots
Educational Tools: Creating study materials for law students
Legal AI: Training models to understand Japanese legal principles
Cross-lingual Legal Studies: Comparing legal concepts across different legal systems

Data Source

The data originates from official Japanese Bar Examination questions administered by the Ministry of Justice of Japan. The examination tests knowledge in three core areas of Japanese law and is required for legal practice in Japan.

Recent Updates

v1.1 (Latest): Fixed instruction field parsing - now correctly extracts 1,373 instruction fields (48.2% of questions) that provide important context for answering questions according to judicial precedent.

Considerations for Use

Limitations

The dataset is in Japanese and requires Japanese language processing capabilities
Questions are based on Japanese legal system and may not be applicable to other legal systems
Some questions may require deep understanding of Japanese legal precedents and context
The dataset reflects the legal understanding and interpretations at the time of each examination

Ethical Considerations

This dataset is intended for research and educational purposes
Users should be aware that legal interpretations may change over time
The dataset should not be used as a substitute for professional legal advice
Proper attribution should be given to the original source (Japanese Ministry of Justice)

Citation

If you use this dataset in your research, please cite:

@dataset{japanese_bar_exam_qa_2024,
  title={Japanese Bar Examination QA Dataset},
  author={Nishino Dataset Collection},
  year={2024},
  publisher={Hugging Face},
  url={https://huggingface.co/datasets/nguyenthanhasia/japanese-bar-exam-qa}
}

License

This dataset is made available for research and educational purposes. Please refer to the original source for specific licensing terms.

Contact

For questions or issues regarding this dataset, please open an issue in the dataset repository.

Datasets:

nguyenthanhasia
/

japanese-bar-exam-qa

You need to agree to share your contact information to access this dataset