On November 1, 1996, the panel of administrative information disclosure of the government's Administrative Reform Committee released the Draft Outline of the Information Disclosure Law (Final Report.) In response to the Final Report, the Action for Public Access, of which the JCLU is an affiliate, held a forum on administrative information disclosure.

The first report was given by Mr. Taizan Maezato from the planning bureau of Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture. Naha is known for its advanced practice of information disclosure. He reported on the city's victory in a court case filed by the central government to void the city's disclosure of draft materials concerning the construction of the Self Defense Forces facilities. The City of Naha has been true to the ideal of its Information Disclosure Ordinance, he said, as exemplified by its full disclosure of the Mayor's social expenses. Social expenses of the municipality have grown into a major concern in the country for its confidentiality, the revealed irrelevance to work, and extraordinary amount.

Next, Attorney Hiroshi Miyake, the Secretary General of the JCLU elaborated on the Final Report. Many of the shortcomings of the Final Report includes: 1)exclusion of special public corporations, 2) unlimited non-disclosure provisions given to several categories, and 3) provisions which allow rejection to reveal either existence or non-existence of the documents requested. However, some stipulations in the Final Report contain improvements compared with the average ordinances of the local governments. In particular, the Final Report entitles "everyone" to request disclosure, and it holds documents that are not yet authorized or not prepared for display to be disclosed.

Despite the fact that the Forum took place on a weekday evening, the audience numbered more than one hundred, demonstrating citizen's keen interest in the administrative information disclosure.