The lower house's plenary session unanimously adopted the amended bill, about 14 months after its original version was submitted to the Diet by the government in March 1998.
The central government drafted the bill nearly 20 years after local governments started to adopt similar disclosure measures. As it is stipulated that the law come into force no later than two years after its proclamation, the public access is expected to be allowed in fiscal 2000 at the earliest.
The bill allows any individual, Japanese or foreign, and any company to request administrative information in the form of paper, magnetic tape, floppy disk or other electronic media.
The government is allowed to reject requests concerning defense, diplomacy and police data, as well as information on certain individuals. The government-sponsored original bill would have allowed citizens to file lawsuits against the government only at the Tokyo District Court, should their request for information be rejected or disclosed information be unsatisfactory.
The bill was amended at the lower house in February to allow citizens to file lawsuits also at district courts in Sapporo, Sendai, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima, Takamatsu and Fukuoka.
At the House of Councillors in April, the bill was further revised so that sites for lawsuits be reviewed four years after the enactment, making it possible for the Naha District Court to be later included in the list to benefit residents of Okinawa Prefecture, as the opposition has sought.
The government plans to set a fee for one request of information at around 300 yen, government sources said. The charge and other detailed operational rules of the law will be stipulated separately in a governmental ordinance.