Nihon Rippo Shiro Zenshu 136 Jouhoukoukaihou Seiteisiryou (1) [Heisei 11nen] Gijiroku-hen I (Enactment Materials of the Information Disclosure Law Vol.1 [1999] Minutes)

Information disclosure laws have been enacted in more than 120 countries, establishing themselves as a standard legal framework in democratic nations. In Japan, the discourse around the "right to know" theory gained traction in the academic world during the 1970s. Subsequently, progressive local governments enacted information disclosure ordinances, and opposition parties initiated the submission of information disclosure bills to the Diet. However, these bills did not reach the stage of deliberation in the Diet. In 1993, a coalition government, primarily composed of former opposition parties that had proposed an information disclosure bill to the Diet, was formed. The Morihiro Hosokawa Cabinet made a political decision to pave the way for enacting the Information Disclosure Law. In 1994, the Liberal Democratic Party, the Socialist Party, and the New Party Sakigake formed a coalition government. These three parties too agreed on the enactment of the Information Disclosure Law, and so an Administrative Information Disclosure Subcommittee was established within the Administrative Reform Committee. Thus, the process to formulate a bill for the disclosure of information was initiated. This book is a compilation of the minutes of the Administrative Information Disclosure Subcommittee, along with the legislative materials and reference materials distributed during its sessions. It stands as the most essential and detailed material for researching the legislative process of the Information Disclosure Law. The "Information Disclosure Law Enactment Materials" consists of 14 volumes, with volumes 1 to 5 encompassing minutes, 6 to 11 comprising legislative materials, and 12 to 14 containing reference materials. In the first volume of this book, Part 1 provides a historical overview leading up to the enactment of the Information Disclosure Law in Japan. In Part 2, the hearings conducted by the Administrative Information Disclosure Subcommittee and the minutes of free talking based on those discussions are included. The minutes of the Administrative Information Disclosure Subcommittee, legislative materials submitted to the subcommittee, and reference materials are extremely important for researching the legislative process of the Information Disclosure Law. This is not only because the Cabinet Bill closely adhered to the outline draft of the Administrative Information Disclosure Subcommittee but also because the deliberations of the same subcommittee that created the outline draft were extremely detailed. If you read the minutes of the subcommittee, you can see that the subcommittee was never led by the subcommittee secretariat, and the members of the subcommittee actively expressed their opinions based on their own insights, and sometimes sharply disagreed. These deliberations eventually converged into a consensus-based process.
 

(Written by UGA Katsuya, Professor Emeritus, Graduate Schools for Law and Politics / 2023)