An expert council whose task it is to propose to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a unified standard for designating and declassifying government secrets under the state secrets law started its work Jan. 17. The council may be able to serve as a minor check against the arbitrary designation of secrets by bureaucrats and heads of administrative bodies, but the defects of the law will remain.
The law gives heads of administrative bodies discretionary power to designate an almost unlimited amount of information as special secrets in the fields of security, diplomacy, counter-intelligence and counterterrorism. Up to 10 years' imprisonment will be handed down to bureaucrats who leak designated secrets, thus severely limiting the access of ordinary citizens, including journalists, to government information. People who "conspire," "incite" or "instigate" in leaking designated secrets can be sentenced up to five years in prison — even if those "secrets" are not leaked to them.
The council members should do their best to minimize anti-democratic effects of the law. The public, on its part, needs to push vigorous grass-roots movements to have the law repealed.