A government-sponsored information access bill to ensure wider disclosure of central government documents is likely to clear the Diet by the end of the month after a Liberal Democratic Party compromise was reached Friday, party officials said.
The compromise proposal adds the Naha District Court to a list of eight other district courts where citizens would be allowed to file suits against the central government should their requests for information be rejected.
But the LDP took a long amount of time to secure final approval of the compromise among its members, making it impossible for the bill to clear the legislature by as early as next week as initially expected.
The proposal drafted by LDP members of the Upper House Committee on General Affairs says the new law would be revised four years after its enactment to allow the district court in the island prefecture to join eight district courts, in Sapporo, Sendai, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, Fukuoka and Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture.
If the opposition camp agrees with the proposal, it will be attached to the bill as a resolution.
The original government-proposed bill said the public can file such lawsuits only with the Tokyo District Court.
However, lawmakers of the Lower House amended the original bill to list seven other district courts as well. The chamber passed the bill in February and sent it to the Upper House.
Opposition parties of the Upper House, however, demanded that the Naha District Court also be listed so people in the remote prefecture will not be inconvenienced.
The new legislation will come nearly 20 years after local governments started adopting similar ordinances.