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I have looked up judge, but I am finding a number of words and am not sure how
they are different. Is there a general word that is most common?

Words I found include: saibankan 裁判官 saibannin 裁判人 hanji 判事 houkan 法官 shichoku
司直
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2019-03-02T03:13:50.413
65793
2019-03-02T10:30:51.333
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question
word-choice word-requests english-to-japanese
What is the Japanese word for a judge in a court of law?
The catch-all term for (proper) judges in the modern Japanese judicial system
is 裁判官. There are also 裁判 **員** ("lay judge / jury") for important cases.

Legally speaking, 判事 is a subclass of 裁判官. 判事 roughly refer to 裁判官 who are not
長官 ("chiefs") nor 判事補 ("assistant judges"). For example, Japanese 最高裁判所
(Supreme Court) has fifteen 裁判官's, which consist of one 最高裁判所 **長官** and
fourteen 最高裁判所 **判事**. That being said, laypeople do not see the word 判事 very
often. I may be mistaken, but I feel news articles for the general public
usually use 裁判官 when they report domestic incidents. I see the word 判事 mainly
from translations of foreign news and detective dramas.
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2019-03-02T09:33:39.377
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2019-03-02T10:30:51.333
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answer