Freedom of Information: A Comparative Legal Survey - Federation of ...

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The Right of Access
The right of access is set out in Article 3 of the RTI Law, which provides that any person may make a request
to the head of a public body for the disclosure of administrative documents. Upon receiving a request, the
head of the public body is required to disclose the information, subject to the regime of exceptions (set out
in Article 5 of the RTI Law).
Article 1, as noted, sets out the purpose of the Law, which is stated to be based on the principle that
sovereignty resides in the people. The overall goal is to promote disclosure by public bodies with a view
to promoting government accountability to the people and to fostering greater public understanding and
criticism of the administration.
The Law defi nes an “administrative document” as any document, drawing or electromagnetic record,
prepared or obtained by an employee in the course of his or her duties, if held by the public body “for
organizational use by its employees”. This is limited as there are may be other forms in which information
may be held and also inasmuch as it only covers records held for offi cial purposes. There are also two
exclusions. The fi rst relates to records which have been published for general sale while the second governs
archives which, by Cabinet Order, are specially managed as historical or cultural materials or for academic
research (Article 2(2)). Lawmakers decided that existing systems for making such information available are
adequate, although it would be preferable for all documents to be covered by the same disclosure rules.
Bodies covered by the Law, defi ned as “administrative organs”, include:
Cabinet bodies or bodies under Cabinet control that were created by law;
administrative bodies as defi ned by various other laws; and
the Board of Audit (Article 2(1)).
Public corporations, of which there are many in Japan providing, among other things, basic services, are
outside the ambit of the Law, as are legislative bodies and the courts, although the Supreme Court has
adopted its own rules setting out procedures for requesting information. 199 However, the Law does require a
law to be passed governing the disclosure obligations of public corporations within two years of its passage
(Additional Provision 2). This obligation was fulfi lled with the passage of the Law Concerning Access to
Information Held by Independent Administrative Entities, which came into effect on 1 October 2002. 200
Any person, including non-citizens, has a right to request information under the RTI Law.
Procedural Guarantees
A request must be in writing, including in electronic form, and must contain the applicant’s name (or the
name of a representative, for a corporate applicant), address and a description of the document sought
in suffi cient detail to enable it to be found. The Law does not require a statement of reasons for requests.
Where the request is defi cient, the public body shall notify the applicant and give him or her a suitable
amount of time to remedy the problem, while also “endeavouring” to provide assistance (Article 4). Heads
of public bodies are required to provide information that may be helpful to applicants and also to take other
steps to assist (Article 23).
A decision on disclosure must normally be made within 30 days. Where the request is referred back to
the applicant for correction or clarifi cation, time spent revising the request is not included in the 30 days.
This period may be extended for another 30 days, “when there are justifi able grounds such as diffi culties
arising from the conduct of affairs”, provided that the applicant must be notifi ed of any such extension in
writing, along with the reasons for it (Article 10). Where the request covers a “considerably large amount of
Administrative Documents” and there is a risk that the performance of the public body will be “considerably