Government information is crucial for the public's
participation in decision making. It also provides basis of ample and (sometimes)
credible information in the largely amateur Internet public space. Unfortunately
Japanese government databases are largely behind firewalls.
1) Prime Minister's
Official Residence (Kantei)
This is supposed to be the gateway to Japanese government information.
It has an extensive
list of English Web pages of ministries and agencies. If you read Japanese,
go to the Japanese language
gateway.
2) Sogo Annai Clearing System
Though only in Japanese, this site provides keyword
searches for government documents and a list
of government homepages.
3) Government Publications
This site has search functions for more than 30,000
government publications and for publications
by Ministry of Finance's Government Publication Office. It also has
a search page for English
language publications.
4) Statistics Bureau and Statistics
Center
A comprehensive gateway to Japanese statistics in English.
The below is the public access status of key Japanese
government databases, as compared with the U. S. counterparts. The Japanese
sites here are only in Japanese language unless otherwise noted.
1) Minutes of the Diet
Since January 1998, Diet's (Congress) both Houses and
National Diet Library have been providing an online version of Minutes
of the Diet, the equivalent of the U. S.'s Congressional Record. The database
includes all the record of full floor sessions and has a keyword search
capacity. In the U. S., Library of Congress's Thomas
system provides Congressional Record database, which includes records
since the 101st Session (1989-1990).
2) Text of Bills
It is crucial for the public to obtain texts of bills in order to actively
organize campaigns around and to voice concerns to the legislation. Only
the abstracts of the bills are available on the Internet, by a commercial
publisher, Daiichi
Hoki. In the U. S., full texts of Congressional
bills, since the 93 Session (1973-74), are freely available on the
Internet.
3) The Current Codes and Regulations (Genko Hoki)
Genko Hoki is the texts of all Japanese laws and regulations.
Though basic and truly public, the law information is behind the firewall.
Gyosei Joho Shisutemu Kenkyujo (The Insitute of Administrative Information
System), a quasi-governmental nonprofit created by Somu-cho (Management
and Coordination Agency), sells a magnetic tape version of the database
for 100,000 yen. Based on the data, commercial publishers produce CD-ROM
and online based products. Gyosei, a commercial publisher specialized on
government publications, sells a CD-ROM database for 156,000 yen. Ministry
of Education's National Center for Science
Information System's (NACSIS) database, which is geared to researchers,
charges 50 yen/minute and 13 yen/record for Current Codes database access.
According to an Asahi Newspaper article on February 26,
1998, the original law text data is created by Somu-cho and is leased to
the Administrative Information System Research Institute for free. The
Institute sold "four or five" magnetic tapes since 1993, with none in the
last 2 years. The president of the Institute is ex-high ranking official
of Somucho (an Amakudari case).
With public resources wasted, universities and private citizens
are volunteering to input law texts into the Internet. For example, Kanazawa
University's "Nihon
no Horitsu" site has inputed more than 300 laws and treaties with the
help of community people. Another extensive law site is Aichi University's
Aidai
Roppo. One of the most comprehensive law text sites is created by an
individual, Mr. Yasumitsu Yamaura. His site, Hoko
has 888 laws, 44 treaties, 159 cabinet directives (seirei), 290 ministry
directives (shorei), and 93 rules (kisoku) as of April 1999. It has a search
capacity.
The United States
Code with complete full texts is free on the Internet and $37 in CD-ROM
format. Code
of Federal Regulations is also free on the Internet.
5) Official Gazette (Kanpo)
Equivalent to the U. S.'s Federal Register, Japan's Official
Gazette (Kanpo) reports daily government actions and announcements such
as new legislations, regulations, department notices, procurements, and
so on. Only the index
information (table of contents) is available on the Internet. The index's
floppy disk version costs 9,515 yen/year (http://www.gov-book.or.jp/print/denshi/kanpo-fd.html).
The equivalent U.
S. Federal Register (since 1995) is provided in full text on the Internet.
6) Supreme Court Decisions
The Supreme Court
Homepage has about 100 full text recent decisions of last couple of
years. The U. S. Supreme Court Opinions are provided at various sites on
the Internet. Cornell University's
site has all the opinions in full text since 1990. The FindLaw
site has data since 1893.
7) Compiled Securities Reports (Yuka Shoken Hokokusho Soran)
Corporate financial information is important for investors
as well as civic groups that monitor corporate activities. The government
collects financial data from publicly traded companies as required by law.
In the U. S., the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) does that. In Japan,
the almighty Ministry of Finance's (MOF) does that. The SEC provides free
access to their corporate disclosure database EDGAR.
It is arguably the world's largest corporate information database, with
data from more than 10,000 publicly-traded US companies (including Japanese
multinationals). In Japan, MOF does not provide Internet free access to
their Compiled Securities Reports (Yuka Shoken Hokokusho Soran). They sell
the CD-ROM version of the report for 2,00,000 yen. The photo disk version
is 5,150,000 yen. Both contain data from aproximately 4000 corporations
(http://www.gov-book.or.jp/annai/souran.html). The online service called
Yuka Kakumei (Securities Revolution) is, for individuals, 350,000 yen/month
(including terminal usage and maintenance) plus a usage charge of 40 yen/report
(http://www.gov-book.or.jp/annai/online.html). The securities revolution
is yet to come.
8) Magazine Article Index
National Diet Library (NDL) creates the Magazine Article
Index (MAI) database, with more than 800,000 citations from 5,500 Japanese
magazines. By law, publishers have to contribute to NDL a copy of every
book and periodical they publish. Currently NDL sells the CD-ROM version
of MAI (1990-current) for 180,000 yen, the magnetic version for 800,000
yen. Three commercial publishers provide online access to MAI. Nichigai
Associate's annual subscription to MAI on the Internet (http://www.nichigai.co.jp/newhp/database/database.html)
is 9,120 yen. If you access to Nichigai's MAI database via PC-VAN (NEC's
commercial online service), you pay 10 yen for each hit list and 30 yen
for each citation display, beside PC-VAN charges.
In the U. S., usually private venders create periodical
databases. One of the big exceptions, however, is National Library of Medicine's
Medline, the world's largest medical database with more than 9 million
citations from 3,900 biomedical magazines in 70 countries. Medline
has been provided for free on the Internet since June 1997.
9) Directory of Officials (Shokuin-Roku)
Most irritating to the public is the CD-ROM product of
Directory of Officials (Shokuin-Roku, http://www.gov-book.or.jp/print/denshi/96047324.html),
which is priced 170,000 yen (60,000 yen without search software). Why do
we have to pay that much for a list of high-ranking government officials?
Published by MOF's Printing Office, the Directory includes names, addresses,
telephone numbers of more than 50,000 national, prefectural, and local
high-ranking officials (above sub-section chief, or kakari-cho, position).
In the U. S., similar directories can be found on websites of each government
department.