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March 28, 2014
DPJ Special Secrets Protection Law Strategy Headquarters
There was insufficient discussion of the special secrets protection law, which was enacted at the end of last year after it was railroaded through the Diet by the ruling parties. Its contents, for example, those relating to how ‘a highly independent third-party body’ is to be established within the executive branch, and the way in which related matters are to be monitored by the Diet, are exceeding ambiguous.
Currently, various political parties are considering how special secrets can be monitored, centring on what kind of monitoring organisation can be established in the Diet, while at the same time, the executive branch is undertaking a review within the Council for the Protection of Information toward enforcing the Law. However, we believe that the following issues exist regarding this.
1. Regarding monitoring in the Diet
There are two points of debate with regard to monitoring in the Diet; (1) whether an organization should be established to monitor secrets on a regular basis, and (2) what the response should be when secrets held by the Cabinet are submitted to the Diet.
(1) Regarding the organisation for regular monitoring of secrets
① Monitoring in the Diet should be considered in conjunction with the monitoring to be carried out within the executive branch, and we should not single out monitoring in the Diet for special debate.
② We do not deny the need to establish an organisation for carrying out regular monitoring in the Diet, but the major prerequisite for this is that a highly independent third-party body should be established by law (not a government ordinance) within the executive branch, and given strong powers.
③ Under the provisions of the ‘Bill for establishing a committee for proper control of classified information’ submitted to the Diet by the DPJ in last year’s extraordinary Diet session and carried forward for deliberation at a later date, a highly independent committee is to be established in the Cabinet Office, and the Prime Minister shall be responsible for appointing the Chair and the other members of this Committee based on nominations set forth in a Diet resolution. There is a limit to the capacity of Diet members to regularly monitor information, and therefore we propose a system in which professionals are nominated to assume monitoring responsibilities in place of Diet members.
1. Regarding the submission of secrets to the Diet
The other point of contention regarding monitoring in the Diet concerns what information should be requested and what procedures undertaken when the Diet requests the executive branch to provide them with various types of secret information, including special secrets.
Key Issue
The key issue here is what to do about Article 104 of the Diet Law. Under the current provisions of the Article, whatever kind of monitoring organization is established in the Diet, if the Cabinet, finally reaches the conclusion that submitting the secrets in question to the Diet ‘would have a negative impact on significant national interests’, then it does not need to be submitted.
DPJ’s Position
In the revision of the Diet Law submitted by the DPJ, the final decision is left in the hands of the Diet. The proposed revision states that the Speaker and Vice Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the President and Vice President of the House of Councillors should inspect secrets to establish whether they ‘would have a negative impact on significant national interests’, and the President/Speaker should make the decision regarding this after consulting with the Vice Speaker/Vice President, it thereby being possible to tailor the response in accordance with the degree of classification of the secret.
2. Regarding reviews being carried out by the executive branch
Current Situation
As part of the preparations for enforcing the provisions of the special secrets protection law, the ‘Council for the Protection of Information’ in the Cabinet Secretariat is considering whether to establish ‘a highly independent third-party body’ in the executive branch by law, including whether it should be given sweeping powers. This Council held its inaugural meeting on January 17 this year, but the date of the next meeting remains unfixed, and the situation is that members and staff of the Council are proceeding with the actual review via a back and forth of question and answer.
The DPJ’s Position
The Minister of State responsible, Masako Mori, has stated in the Diet that these communications [between Council members and staff] will not be made public and therefore we feel obliged to say that the government has no interest in the least in preserving transparency.
Depending on the conclusions of the Council’s review, it is possible that legal measures may become necessary. From this perspective also, we cannot accept such an opaque review. We believe that a forum for reviewing the issue, to include the aforementioned issue of how monitoring should take place, should be established in the Diet.
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