Editorial
Bureaucrats chafing at DPJ muzzle
The administration of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is off to a smooth start, with Cabinet ministers starting to announce their policies to the press. However, it is inappropriate that the new administration has decided to ban administrative vice ministers and other high-ranking bureaucrats from holding regular news conferences on principle.
Ministries were informed of the decision on Wednesday, immediately after the Hatoyama Cabinet was launched, causing no small amount of confusion to journalists. The director general of the Meteorological Agency cancelled his regular news conference the following day, and the Foreign Ministry forced Ambassador to the United Nations Yukio Takasu to call off a news conference. It is highly questionable for the administration to ban bureaucrats from even releasing information on disaster prevention and dispatch messages to overseas.
Bureaucrats have obviously overreacted to the ban, with lower-ranking ministry and branch officials also refraining from holding news conferences.
The main goal of the new administration is to transform the bureaucrat-dominated government into one led by politicians. It is appropriate to reform the government -- in which bureaucrats have dominated information and authority and placed priority to their ministries' benefit over national responsibility -- and ensure that politicians backed by the public control the bureaucracy and protect national benefit. The results of the Aug. 30 House of Representatives show that the new administration's direction has won strong support from voters.
Still, the question of how bureaucrats should disclose information to the public is separate from the new administration's goal of revamping the bureaucrat-led government.
The Hatoyama administration took the measure apparently because they were wary that bureaucrats might disclose only information that is advantageous to themselves. Moreover, it reportedly followed the British government's system in which bureaucrats do not hold news conferences.
However, the government should not provide the public with only information screened by politicians. Nor should Japan totally imitate the British government's system.
The new administration should use a variety of information to work out policies while ensuring transparency in the policy-making process. A politician-led policy-making can be achievable only with public support. Therefore, it is unnecessary for the government to block information that bureaucrats provide to news media. A fuller picture can be given if information from various sources is available.
The government appears to be attempting to settle the dispute over the ban. On Friday, Prime Minister Hatoyama said the government will allow administrative vice ministers to hold news conferences if instructed by the ministers concerned. News organizations have no intention to cling to its vested right as the receivers of government information. It is also true that we have been criticized as simply reporting information provided by bureaucrats.
It is an important phase when the administration is required to achieve policy-making led by politicians. The new administration should keep in mind that the ruling Democratic Party of Japan's ability to dispatch information to the public was instrumental in its election victory and the subsequent transfer of power.
(Mainichi Japan) September 19, 2009