Article 1 of the law on management and storage of official documents, which went into effect in 2011, says that official documents of government organizations are the people's intellectual property underpinning the foundation of a healthy democracy. The law is a legacy of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who decided that the sloppy handling of official documents must stop and that politics must be brought closer to the people by easing their access to such documents.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other government leaders and officials should reflect on whether the current administration is upholding the spirit of the law. Regrettably, recent events concerning official documents point to the contrary. It is the duty of government leaders and bureaucrats to achieve the law's purpose of enhancing administrative organizations' accountability through proper management of official documents. The administration and the Diet should also move to plug loopholes in the law and related rules.
In December, the Defense Ministry turned down a freelance journalist's request for daily activity logs of Self-Defense Force personnel deployed to South Sudan for the United Nations-led peacekeeping operation from July 7 to 12 last year. While the ministry rejected the disclosure on the grounds that the logs had been destroyed, the Joint Staff Office in January told Defense Minister Tomomi Inada that the reports existed in the form of electronic data — and the logs were finally made public in early February. Later, Inada confirmed that all of the daily activity logs of the SDF peacekeepers dating back to the start of the South Sudan operation have been kept in the form of electronic data. The incident demonstrated sloppiness by the ministry and SDF officials in managing official documents, and their lack of understanding concerning the duty to respect the people's right to know.