Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada wants to revamp the declassification system for diplomatic documents because the current system leaves document release largely to the discretion of bureaucrats, sources close to him said Sunday.

Okada is thinking of drawing up new rules and setting up a third-party panel to supervise information disclosure so the current principle governing the declassification of documents compiled 30 or more years ago will be better served, the sources said.

This could also mean removing declassified documents from bureaucrats' hands for purposes of disclosure.

Selecting which documents to declassify is the domain of the Diplomatic Record Declassification Review Division, part of the Minister's Secretariat at the Foreign Ministry.

Its decisions are subject to approval by a committee that comprises the heads of the secretariat and of each bureau in the Foreign Ministry.

After consulting the sections and divisions in charge of diplomacy with the countries concerned, a decision is made to either declassify a document or keep it secret. Many are kept secret.

However, the declassification review division can only access a document that has been moved to the basement library by the section in charge of that particular document, and many records concerning key diplomatic issues, such as the territorial dispute between Japan and Russia and the Japan-U.S. security alliance, are still in the hands of the vice minister, bureau chiefs and other sections in the Foreign Ministry even though they were compiled 30 or more years ago.

The declassification review division also has just over 10 officials working there, and the personnel shortage has reportedly resulted in some 40,000 document files languishing in the basement library.

Okada will begin making concrete proposals for revamping the disclosure system in January.