Last in a series

Staff writer

Informed citizens are a feature of a healthy democracy. They can monitor, direct and prevent government and officials from overstepping their boundaries.

In recent years, the proliferation of scandals in Japan has highlighted the need for a citizenry armed with information and capable of checking rampant indiscretions. Ostensibly, it was for this reason the preliminary draft of the government's information disclosure law identified "enhanced supervision of and participation in administration by the people" as the objective of the legislation.

But in the most recent version, reworked by the Management and Coordination Agency, the government has watered it down to read "enhanced fair and democratic administration based on the appropriate understanding and criticism of the people."

The government justified the substitution by saying the language of the former document was not appropriate for legislation. Critics contend the change is motivated by bureaucratic aversion to the idea of "supervision" by the citizenry, and call this a clear retreat from the original draft.

This promises to be one focal point as the debate over the legislation by the ruling coalition -- the Liberal Democratic Party, Social Democratic Party and New Party Sakigake -- heats up. Representatives are to convene Monday, as the parties meet for the third time, in an effort to put together a mutually agreeable draft.

The SDP and Sakigake are fighting to have the original wording restored before the final draft, scheduled to be submitted to the Diet later this month, is completed. Apart from this, there are few changes between the preliminary draft and government draft. "The central meaning of the draft hasn't changed," said Mikio Akiyama, a member of the subcommittee of the Administrative Reform Committee entrusted to put together the preliminary draft.

Over 1 1/2 years, the committee met 64 times, studying foreign and Japanese local government legislation, as well as listening to the opinions of citizens' groups and economic and labor organizations before submitting the preliminary draft to the prime minister in December 1996. "The clearest difference between the two drafts is the objective (of the law), where the words 'supervision' and 'participation' have been deleted," said Akiyama, a leading expert in constitutional issues related to free expression. Akiyama has also written extensively about information disclosure, free speech and related issues.

Akiyama acknowledges that the words "supervision" and "participation" are not definitive and might be slightly unwieldy as legal terms, but said the subcommittee felt they were important elements and so decided to include them. "I still feel the preliminary draft has been weakened. It's a shame," Akiyama said.

Others point out that the wording of the objective could impart a large influence on future interpretations and the establishment of future precedents.