Information Disclosure and Personal Information Protection Review Board

A board set up in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (総務省) to examine a request for review (審査請求) when the body that must decide it consults the board under the Act on Access to Information Held by Administrative Organs, the Act on Access to Information Held by Incorporated Administrative Agencies or the Act on the Protection of Personal Information (Act for Establishment of the Information Disclosure and Personal Information Protection Review Board, Article 2). Its fifteen members are appointed by the Prime Minister (内閣総理大臣), with the consent of both Houses of the Diet (国会), from people of outstanding insight (Articles 3 and 4, paragraph (1)). When it considers it necessary, it can have the body consulting it show it the documents or the personal information themselves, which that body may not refuse, and no one may ask the board to disclose what it is shown (Article 9, paragraphs (1) and (2)). When it has answered a consultation, it sends a copy of its written report (答申書) to the person who requested the review and to anyone who has joined the review as a party (参加人, an intervenor), and makes the content of its report public (Article 16). The head of an administrative organ who must decide a request for review of a decision on disclosure, or of a failure to decide, must consult it first, unless the request is unlawful and is dismissed, or it is granted in full and all the documents are to be disclosed with no third party having submitted a written objection to their disclosure (反対意見書). When the head is the President of the Board of Audit (会計検査院), a board set up by a separate Act is consulted instead (Act on Access to Information Held by Administrative Organs, Article 19, paragraph (1)).