[Archive Project No.0005]

* Donations for this case will be paid to JCLU, which supported the trial at that time.

* This case is the subject of the Proceedings Archive Project. The proceedings have already ended.

(1) Background of the proceedings

The Japan-US Joint Committee, which is established under the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement, is said to have an agreement not to publish the minutes, etc. unless there is an agreement between Japan and the United States. It is also said that the minutes to be published were prepared for publication.

Therefore, all requests for information disclosure have not been disclosed so far, and various claimants have filed complaints against these non-disclosure decisions, but information disclosure and personal information The Conservation Review Board consistently reports that non-disclosure is valid.

(2) Reason for requesting information disclosure

In this way, the Japan-US Joint Committee has an agreement not to publish the minutes, etc. unless there is an agreement between Japan and the United States, and overturning it and disclosing it will hinder Japan's diplomacy and security. Information such as minutes is judged to be private because of the effect, and the judgment is fixed.

It is clear that this source is undisclosed unless there is an agreement between Japan and the United States at the Japan-US Joint Committee in 1960, and even a similar agreement at the Japan-US Joint Committee during the 1952 administrative agreement . .. Both are the contents of the agreement more than 50 years ago, and after that, the Information Disclosure Law was enacted and operated in both Japan and the United States, and the public perception of information disclosure is changing, so we will clarify what kind of agreement it is. I thought it was necessary . Therefore, we specified a part of the minutes that we agreed to be "not disclosed without mutual agreement between Japan and the United States" and requested information disclosure . However, all the minutes of 1960 were not disclosed, and the minutes of 1952 were absent .

(3) Reason for filing

Information on the Japan-US Joint Committee is not disclosed except for those that are publicly disclosed, so that the judgment of the Information Disclosure / Personal Information Protection Examination Committee is fixed. Therefore, considering that progress cannot be expected from the complaints, we have filed a proceeding in parallel with the complaints, as there have been no information disclosure proceedings related to the minutes of the Japan-US Joint Committee . Did.

Of the minutes of the 1960s, which were all undisclosed, the exact wording of the part that can be understood that it will not be published unless both parties agree, but what kind of content is already written is a public document. It is obvious in. Moreover, the agreement that Japan and the United States do not announce unless they agree has nothing to do with security and diplomatic policies themselves. It is clearly too broad a non-disclosure range for all such information to be undisclosed due to diplomatic and security obstacles. I think it is clearly strange to not disclose such information because both Japan and the United States have not agreed to publish it.

In addition, although the relevant minutes of 1952 are said to be nonexistent, their existence can be confirmed by past examination committee reports, and the fact that they do not exist should not be true. I have been verbally confirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it has not been discarded or transferred as a historical document, but there are doubts about how official documents should be managed.

Based on the above, Access-Info Clearinghouse has filed this proceeding with the support of JCLU.

(4) Change of action for national compensation claim / petition for document submission order

After the suit was filed, it was found that the same document as the document not disclosed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was submitted in a separate proceeding in which the government sued Okinawa Prefecture as a plaintiff, and the evidence in this separate proceeding was submitted as evidence in this proceeding. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs changed the decision and made a decision change to disclose the requested part of the minutes that had not been disclosed .

In response to this, the Information Disclosure Clearinghouse changed the proceedings , and changed the proceedings to the state compensation claim, saying that the original decision of non-disclosure decision by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was illegal and violated the duty of care, and has been in dispute. rice field. During the dispute, the state confirmed by e-mail to the United States before the initial decision not to disclose the information disclosure clearinghouse, and since consent was not obtained for the disclosure of the minutes, the defendant country said that there was no negligence in the non-disclosure. Requested the submission of such a supporting email because of the allegations made by. The state-based email is the core document that led to the state's decision not to disclose the document in response to the Information Disclosure Clearinghouse request, even though the evidence was submitted in a separate proceeding. However, because the government submitted a statement that the US did not agree to submit the email to the court, it filed an order to submit a document for the email . Although it is a state redress claim in a discovery lawsuit, it seems that there is almost no example of a petition for a document submission order.

(5) Decision to implement in-camera procedure

In order to decide whether or not to issue a document submission order, the court decided that it was necessary to confirm the email requested by the Information Disclosure Clearinghouse, and issued an email presentation order. Regarding the implementation of in-camera procedures for emails (only the court actually sees and hears private documents), the defendant country does not need to carry out in-camera procedures in writing, and the Japan-US Joint Committee private sector He submitted a memorandum of understanding by the U.S. Air Force Colonel, the U.S. Co-Chair of the Jurisdiction Subcommittee, as evidence. For reasons such as maintaining a stable presence, we have expressed our intention to strongly oppose the implementation of the in-camera procedure, even on the premise of trust and background in Japan's judicial system. " ) Was made.

(6) Sudden approval of national compensation claim

After that, the court indicated its intention to carry out an in-camera in the preparatory proceedings. Then, on the next due date for the preparatory proceedings, the government suddenly acknowledged liability. It seems that this was to avoid the in-camera procedure in which the judge viewed the contents of the email between Japan and the United States scheduled in the proceedings. It is extremely unusual for a country to accept a "loss" in the middle of a trial. There is no possibility that the sentence will find the illegality of the country, and it is unacceptable with disregard for the judiciary.

The state redress part of the proceeding was terminated by the approval of the state, and only the proceedings regarding the disclosure of the minutes of 1952 remained, but the judgment on that part was defeated by the plaintiff.