Apr 14 06:23 AM US/Eastern
TOKYO, April 14 (AP) - (Kyodo) — Japan Federation of Bar Associations President Kenji Utsunomiya welcomed on Wednesday a Tokyo District Court ruling that ordered the state to disclose diplomatic documents on the 1972 Okinawa reversion while recognizing the existence of a bilateral secret pact over the financing of the reversion.
"The ruling has significant meaning by recognizing the importance of the people's right to know," Utsunomiya said in a comment, adding there is a need to decide national policies through public discussions based on necessary information.
The district court also said in its ruling on April 9 that while it was the plaintiffs' responsibility to prove the state had compiled and possessed the documents, it was the state's responsibility to prove it had lost them. Unless the state proved the documents were abandoned, "it should be effectively assumed that the state still possesses them," it determined.
Referring to the point, Utsunomiya said the ruling "clarified the administrative accountability over the abandonment of public documents, the intellectual resources of the public" in line with the principle of the information disclosure law.
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