The New Public Records Act in Japan : For use of intellectual resources and accomplishment of accountability

Abstract

The New Public Records Act was enacted on June 24, 2009 and will be in effect in April 2011. This is the first comprehensive law of managing administrative records including historical records in Japan. The law states that the public records are intellectual resources shared by citizens and allows people to have more access to them. It depends on the concept that the public records mean the basis of democracy including accountability. This article describes the main points of the new law.