Nowadays, regardless of the nation or region, access to government information became mainstream of public administration. And it is being understood as an essential system for revitalization of democracy and for local autonomy, especially local residents' autonomy. Second Rcommendation Report what the Committee for the Promotion of Decentralization submitted to the Prime Minister in July 1997 advises, "Corresponding to increasint self-decision-making and self-responsibility as decentralization is promoted, it is important to ensur fairness of local administration, to strive for improvement of clearness, and to place local administration in observation of inhabitants". Local governments preceded the nation with enactment of the Free Access to Informaton Ordinances. Today, 47 prefectures (one of them are outline) and all ordinance-designated cities carry our the ordinance. But municipalities do not enact the ordinance very well. The Recommendation require them to enact the ordinance as early as they can. For the nation, the enactment of the Free Access to Information Law has finally gotten going, the law is going to be presented at the ordinary session of the Diet in 1998. On the other hadn, Administrative Procedures Law has enacted in the nation, but it is still an important problem what local governments must solve in the future. Only when both the Free Access to Information Ordinance and the Administrative Procedures Ordinance take power, open and fair local autonomy without corruption over the local administration is established.
