May 7,1999
Japan Civil Liberties Union
The Upper House passed a National Archives bill today. The bill, however, fails to fully institute a principle of public documents being made open, as it does not state requesters’ rights to disclosure or the obligation of the National Archives to disclose, nor does it stipulate appeals on rejected requests or provisions for copying. The Japan Civil Liberties Union calls for the Lower House to include the following points in the bill so that the said principle be carried through the past/non-working documents no less than the working documents, which is covered by the Information Disclosure Law:
- In respect of the objective of the Information Disclosure Law, the National Archives Law is not to attach wider limitations to reading than those provided for under the Information Disclosure Law, and to employ partial disclosure and other measures for disclosure under the Information Disclosure Law as much as possible.
- Formulation of specific provisions concerning the explicit referral to the right to request, or reading and copying should be included in the legislation on the information disclosure of special public corporations as provided for under paragraph 2 of the Annexed Regulation of the Information Disclosure Act.
- To establish a panel composed of the third parties including representatives of the citizenry, to review the transfer of public documents to the National Archives and permission to read public documents so as to exclude arbitrary decisions in the process by national institutions or the Prime Minister.