After a year's preparation, the China's FOI Regulations go into effect today. The General Office of the State Council also promulgated its Several Suggestions on Implementation of the China’s Freedom of Information Regulations on 29 April 2008.[1]
[1] The General Office of the State Council, Several Suggestions on Implementation of the China’s Freedom of Information Regulations Guobanfa[2008]No.36.
One of international best practices is that anyone should be available to exercise the right to know without any grounds or legal interests. Most FOI laws do not require requesters to provide reasons for their request with the exception of the Italian legislation.[1] Iyer argues that an ideal right to know allows anyone to request information without having to show a reason why they are asking for that.[2] This requirement is slightly unclear under the
[1] Article 22 (1) of the Law on Administrative Procedure 1990 requires that those who request information should have a ‘direct, practical, and actual interest based on a legally regulated case in relation to the document for which access is required’.
[2] Venkat Iyer, Freedom of Information: Principles for legislation (2000) UNPAN
[3] Jamie Horsley,
[4] The General Office of the State Council, Several Suggestions on Implementation of the China’s Freedom of Information Regulations Guobanfa[2008]No.36.
[5] Chen Zhong and Xiao Lu, Shanghai Issued its New FOI Rules (2008) Caijing <>at 1 May 2008.
After a year’s preparation, the
Between 1 May 2004 (the date of commencement of the Shanghai FOI Rules) and 31 December 2007,
The number of requests in 2007 is 6485. This is a decrease of 13.91% compared to 2006. 6852 and 5893 requests have been responded in 2006 and 2007 respectively. The percentage of full-disclosure responses in 2007 is lower than that of last year (compared with 67.61% in 2007 and 75.06% in 2006). However, the percentage of refusals increases from 20.48% in 2006 to 27.32% in 2007, and more refusals fall within the scope of the six stipulated exemptions (compared with 25.34% in 2007 and only 13.40% in 2006). It indicates that the quality of requests or the public bodies’ capacity to handle FOI requests is increasing.
In
Taken from Freedom of Information Organization
Washington, DC, January 18, 2008 - Two weeks after President Bush signed landmark legislation to reform the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) the first public discussion between officials and openness advocates was held this week, according to a new Web posting on freedominfo.org. The meeting focused on key provisions of the new law, including the creation of the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) to function as a FOIA ombudsman, the availability of attorneys fees for FOIA requesters, penalties for agency delay, and changes to the definition of "news media." The law, which passed both houses of Congress in December with bipartisan support after several years of negotiation, aims to fix some of the most persistent problems in the FOIA system, including excessive delay, lack of responsiveness, and litigation gamesmanship by federal agencies.
Before the effective date of the FOI Regulations, the Office of Legislative Affairs under the State Council conducted six training sessions between October and December 2007 and trained about 3,000 attendees coming from a wide range of government agencies.
Taken from Shanghai Informatization Commission and translated by Ben Wei
Taken from Shanghai Informatization Commission and translated by Ben Wei
Taken from Shanghai Informatization Commission and translated by Ben Wei
China's Civil Servant Law was adopted on 4 April 2005 and went into effect on 1 June 2006. This law requires a civil servant to protect the secrets relating to their work (Article 12) and not to disclose any work secrets (Article 54). However, this law does not define work secrets. In practice, this undefined term could mean everything concerning government operations, and this will significantly encourage government officials in advocating secrecy. [1] Regulations on Imposing punishment on Civil Servants in the Administrative Branch were adopted by the State Council on 29 April 2007, and went into effect on 1 June 2007. Civil servants are liable to a variety of administrative sanctions, such as warning, demerit record, heavy demerit record, demotion, dismissal and discharge, for their disclosure of state and work secrets resulting in various adverse consequences (Article 26).
While work secrets are not formally provided for under China's FOI Regulations, it is still necessary to clearly define this broad term in order to avoid its adverse effect on FOI.
[1] Hanhua Zhou, Draft for FOI Regulations (1st ed. 2003) 112.
A general public interest test was adopted in New Zealand FOI legislation, while only a special public interest was adopted in those of
[1] Judith Aitken, ‘Open Government in
According to Snell, the comparative study of FOI is ‘relatively unexplored’ around the world.[1] Snell also calls for ‘[t]here is an urgent need for academics, postgraduates, government officials and NGOs to develop comparative studies in this area which include, but extend beyond, singular case studies or collections of case studies’. [2] However, Snell examines that few scholars have created good comparative tools to help ‘cross-jurisdictional analysis’ of a variety of FOI development around the world.[3] Some scholars did a great job in this area. Roberts[4] and Snell[5] developed an administrative compliance model to analyze the implementation of FOI legislation. Lidberg created a monitoring tool to examine five countries’ gap between the promises of FOI legislation and the real practices.[6] The Open Society Justice Initiative also developed an Access to Information Monitoring Tool which provides a way of measuring government transparency and tracking progress in fourteen countries’ implementation of FOI laws. [7] However, these studies miss each country’s history or culture out of their analysis.
[1] Rick Snell, ‘Using Comparative Studies to Improve Freedom of Information Analysis: Insights from
[2] Rick Snell, ‘Is there a Role for Comparative Freedom of Information Aanlysis?: Part 1’ (2004)113 Freedom of Information Review 57, 60.
[3] Rick Snell, ‘Freedom of Information Practices’ (2006) 13 Agenda 291, 300.
[4] Alasdair Roberts, Limited Access: Assessing the Health of Canada’s Freedom of Information Laws (1998) Canadian Newspaper Association
[5] Rick Snell, ‘Administrative Compliance-Evaluating the Effectiveness of Freedom of Information’ (2001) 93 Freedom of Information Review 29.
[6] Johan Lidberg, ‘Keeping the Bastards Honest’ – The Promise and Practice of Freedom of Information Legislation (D Phil Thesis,
[7] Open Society Justice Initiative, Transparency & Silence: A Survey of Access to Information Laws and Practices in 14 Countries (2006) Open Society Institute & Soros Foundations Network< http://www.soros.org/resources/articles_publications/publications/transparency_20060928 >at 15 November 2006.
As a result, in BC 536, laws were officially published for the first time on a Ding (a vessel) by Chan Zi in the
Note: Qiuming Zuo, Zuo Zhuan—Zhao Gong Liu Nian (2000)Guoxue
The political report of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (NCCPC) in 2002 recognized that the importance of transparency and required to promote open government affairs around the country.[1] The political report of the 17th NCCPC in 2007 further required to improve the open administrative system in various areas and increase transparency in government work and recognized that ‘[p]ower must be exercised in the sunshine to ensure that it is exercised correctly’.[2]
[1] Jiang Zeming, Build a Well-off Society in an All-Round Way and Create a New Situation in Building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics— Jiang Zemin’s Report at 16th Party Congress (2002) Xinhuanet<>at 26 October 2007.
[2] Hu Jintao, Hold High the Great Banner of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and Strive for New Victories in Building a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects—Hu Jintao’s Report at 17th Party Congress(2007) People.com<>at 26 October 2007.
In BC 536, law was officially published for the first time on a Ding (a vessel) by Chan Zi in the
In BC 513, Zhao Yang in the
The Qin Dynasty clearly explained terms and purposes of the criminal law in a book, titled Frequently Asked Questions about Criminal Law. Meanwhile, Emperor Qin Shi Huang required the public to be educated about criminal law (Yi Fa Wei Jiao), and government officials to promulgate criminal law (Yi Li Wei Shi).
Emperors in the following dynasties basically disclosed their law to the public, although it is difficult to find evidence of the disclosure of Han Law (Han Lv) in the Han Dynasty.
However, in the Jin Dynasty (265-420), Emperor Jin Wu Di published Xin Law (Xin Lv) in 267.
In the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Tang Tai Zong published Tang Law in 637. Emperor Tang Gao Zong promulgated Explanations of Tang Law as a new law in 654.
In the Song Dynasty, Emperor Song Tai Zu published Song Criminal Law in 963, and this law was first published by using woodblock printing.
In the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Ming Tai Zu promulgated Ming Criminal Law (Ming Da Gao) in 1385. Emperor Ming Tai Zu required each family to be held a cope of Ming Criminal Law. The person who committed crime and should be punished by banishment or under this punishment in accordance with the law could be given a directly lighter punishment if his or her family had a cope of Ming Criminal Law. Accordingly, Ming Criminal Law became the most widely distributed and well-known law in ancient
In the Spring and Autumn Dynasties, many legalists favoring rule of law started to promulgate their theory about law and gained support from the rulers. Feizi Han argued that ‘law should be known by the public’. Yan Shang asserted that ‘law should be easily understood and known by the public’. He also required officials in charge of legislation to promulgate law and answer enquiries from the public in order that everyone could understand law. If the public understood law, then officials could not treat the public illegally.
The advanced technology dramatically decreases the cost of obtaining information. Internet makes the flow of information cheaper, quicker and more convenient than before. At the end of 2005, there are 11,995 government websites. 81.1% government authorities at and above county level have established their websites. 96.1% government authorities directly under the State Council have established their websites on the internet. The percentage for government authorities at provincial and county level established websites is 96.1% and 77.7% respectively. Government websites become one of the most important methods for information flow between government and the public. In addition, the number of telephone users increased dramatically from 0.23 billion in 2000 to 0.74 billion in 2005. There are 30 mobile phones per 100 persons in 2005; this number is only 7 in 2000. 95.29% people have television in 2005. The number of internet users is up to 137 million in January 2007, accounting for about 10% of the
Taken from Open and Shut blog run by Peter Timmins
Australia Talks on Radio National included a segment on "Freedom of Information and Digital Policy" featuring Rick Snell of the University of Tasmania and Michael McKinnon, Freedom of Information Editor Channel 7. It provided a good overview of some of the current problems and issues regarding record keeping.
