Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has had Population and Gender Equality Issues Minister Yoko Kamikawa double as state minister in charge of improving the custodianship of official documents. In a related move, a nine-member government panel has started discussing rules on proper maintenance of such documents. The government ministries also have been ordered to stop discarding official documents they currently hold.

Credit should be given to Mr. Fukuda for taking up an issue that has an important bearing on people's lives. The sloppy handling of official documents by government officials and workers has been exemplified by the much publicized difficulty in identifying 50 million pension premium payment records, last year's misinformation concerning the volume of fuel oil supplied by the Maritime Self-Defense Force to a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean, and the health ministry's failure to notice the existence of documents that identified people who could have been infected with hepatitis C. The behavior of both the central and local governments must be overseen.

Despite the Archives Law and the National Archives of Japan Law, Japan does not have a law that clearly lays down rules on the production, maintenance and discarding of official documents. The National Archives' capacity and personnel resources are inadequate. It also lacks a legal power to issue instructions to government ministries. In his policy speech in January, Mr. Fukuda called for a complete review of the current handling of official documents. He increased the budget for the National Archives and saved it from the fate of being weakened in the name of reform of independent administrative agencies.