This study verifies three cases that have become major social issues (i.e., the falsification of decision documents related to the sale of state-owned land to Moritomo Gakuen, the concealment of consultation documents related to the establishment of a new department of Kake Gakuen, and the concealment of daily reports from the Self-Defense Force units involved in United Nations peacekeeping operations in South Sudan). Furthermore, it clarifies current problems and future challenges related to the system of public records management and information disclosure.
The results of this study indicate that six problems can be identified in the system of public records management and information disclosure. The first problem is that the relevant administrative bodies do not necessarily prepare the documents that should be prepared. The second problem is that the file management of such documents is inadvertently or deliberately inappropriate. The third problem is that these bodies can arbitrarily discard documents by setting the retention period to less than one year. The fourth problem is that these bodies can easily hide documents by positioning them as personal notes.The fifth problem is that these bodies can refuse to disclose documents because they are classified as non-disclosure information. The sixth problem is that there is no mechanism for preventing the falsification of documents.
To resolve these problems, it is necessary to revise the Public Records Management Act and the Access to Government Information Act by, for example, making the creation, storage, and publication of public documents mandatory and establishing penalties for any violation of this requirement.
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