On November 2, 2009, the Supreme People’s Court issued Rules for Several Issues Concerning Adjudicating Cases on the Public Release of Government Information (Draft for the Request of Public Opinion). Pursuant to relevant articles of the Rules, if citizens, legal persons and other organizations (collectively known as parties) apply to administrative authorities in order to obtain government information and administrative authorities refuse or do not reply within the prescribed time limit, these parties can take action against the government within the scope of administrative proceedings.

 

The Regulations for Making Government Information Public (the Regulations) were implemented on May 1, 2008. The Regulations allow citizens, legal persons and other organizations to initiate lawsuits if the parties believe that administrative actions unfairly prohibit them from viewing government information. After more than a year of the Regulations’ implementation, the media has constantly reported on administrative cases regarding the public availability of government information, but the courts have not accepted a significant number of these cases. The Supreme People’s Court reached a decision that for this new type of case and many issues regarding the application of the still relatively new law, the Supreme People’s Court should immediately formulate judicial interpretations to specify how to handle these cases.

 

The Rules primarily include the scope of administrative cases for making government information public, the qualifications necessary for parties to take action, special evidence rules, the scope of prohibitions on making government information public, the relationship between releasing government information and the Archives Act, methods for rendering judgments, and the application of the Rules in reference to suing enterprises and public institutions.

 

With regard to previous cases of applying for access to government information, administrative authorities refused to release these pieces of information because they were deemed unsuitable release to the public. For example, Yiming Yan, a Shanghai lawyer, requested the Ministry of Finance to open the draft of the fiscal budget. However, the Ministry of Finance replied that the drafts for the budget of the central government were unsuitable to open to the public without the examination and approval of the National People’s Congress. The Rules indicate that the aforementioned information is still difficult to open. Under the Rules, if the information requested is being discussed, researched and reviewed, and furthermore, if release of the information may influence the regular administrative management and the achievement of administrative objectives, courts should dismiss the plaintiff’s claims. Administrative authorities that refuse to provide government information to the plaintiff should testify that they were fulfilling their obligations to inform and explain to the plaintiff.

 

Yet in cases where the government should release information to plaintiffs, the courts should enforce a time limit upon the government to comply with such requests.

 

(Source: The Supreme People’s Court)