On April 25, a government panel proposed ways to improve the management of government documents after it had reflected on a deplorable omission on the part of the government — the failure to take minutes from a series of meetings held to cope with the 3/11 quake and tsunami and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear crisis.
The government must faithfully implement the panel's proposal. More important, Cabinet ministers and government bureaucrats must translate into action the legal principle of managing official documents. A law that went into force in April 2011 says that official documents are intellectual resources that are the common property of the people and support the foundations of healthy democracy, and that the government has the duty of explaining the contents of official documents to current and future citizens.
After the 3/11 disasters, the government set up 15 entities, including the emergency headquarters to cope with the disasters and the headquarters to cope with the nuclear disaster, both headed by the prime minister. But officials failed to take minutes of the meetings for 10 of the 15 entities. In some cases, there weren't even meeting summaries.
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