Broad disclosure of information held by the Diet and transparency of the Diet are indispensable to the concept of popular sovereignty. In Japan, however, this issue has yet to be discussed at the government level. The JCLU, which has promoted national information disclosure for many years and has already proposed information disclosure legislation to apply to the executive and judicial branches of government, has recently drafted a Diet information disclosure bill. The JCLU submitted that bill to the chairpersons of both Houses, political parties, and others on October 1, 2001.
The organizations subject to this proposed bill would include the House of Representatives, the House of Councilors, the National Diet Library, the Judge Impeachment Court, the Judge Indictment Committee, and any agency within the Diet or under the jurisdiction of the Diet. This bill would require disclosure of all information regarding Diet activities.
To ensure prompt enactment of the bill, the JCLU referred to the Information Disclosure Law, which came into effect in 2001 and is applicable to administrative agencies, and followed it as closely as possible. Since the Diet is the supreme organization of the State, however, special arrangements were necessary for some of the bill's provisions. For example, one provision suggests that members of the Diet should be excluded from the review panel that will consider appeals of disclosure decisions. The JCLU hopes that this provision will allow the review panel to execute its authority of investigation free of pressure from political parties and thus work for the benefit of the people. The present Administrative Appeal Law is to govern appeal procedures.
The bill is available in Japanese on the JCLU website.