Provided is a moving picture decoding device (100) including a direct mode availability judging unit (109), when a decoding target block should be decoded in a temporal direct mode, judging whether or not a reference picture for a decoded picture, which is in a vicinity of the decoding target block in terms of display time, is usable as a forward reference picture for the decoding target block. Further, the moving picture decoding device (100) includes a substitute process performing unit (110) decoding the decoding target block in the temporal direct mode using a picture other than the reference picture, or decoding the decoding target block in other encoding mode.