is a Japanese jurist who previously served as an associate justice of the

Supreme Court of Japan The , located in Hayabusachō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, is the highest court in Japan. It has ultimate judicial authority to interpret the Japanese constitution and decide questions of national law. It has the power of judicial review, which allows it ...

from 2018 to 2024.

Education and career

Miyama was born on September 2, 1954, in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. He attended the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

and graduated with a degree in

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

in 1979. He served as a judge in lower courts and as an officer in the

Ministry of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

for nearly 40 years before his appointment to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court

On January 9, 2018, Miyama was appointed to the Supreme Court of Japan. In Japan, justices are formally nominated by the

Emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

(at that time,

Akihito Akihito (born 23 December 1933) is a member of the Imperial House of Japan who reigned as the 125th emperor of Japan from 1989 until 2019 Japanese imperial transition, his abdication in 2019. The era of his rule was named the Heisei era, Hei ...

) but in reality the Cabinet chooses the nominees and the Emperor's role is a formality. Miyama's term ended on September 1, 2024 (one day before he turns 70). This is because all members of the court have a mandatory retirement age of 70.

References

Japanese jurists 1954 births Living people {{Japan-law-bio-stub