No third-party for nuclear secret designation

December 12, 2013

Japan has no third-party oversight body for nuclear secrets

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20131212p2a00m0na013000c.html

There has been no third-party body in Japan for nearly 15 months to check the validity of the designation by the central government and nuclear plant operators of information related to nuclear power facilities as secrets, it has been learned.

No third-party oversight body has been set up since the establishment in September 2012 of the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA). This means that the government and nuclear plant operators have decided what should be made secret behind closed doors with no external checking functions. While the recently enacted state secrecy law poses serious questions over the way in which the government is to designate information as "special secrets," the latest revelation is likely to call into question the government's stance toward a third-party oversight body.

In response to growing global threats of terrorism, Japan revised the Nuclear Reactor Regulation Law in 2005 to require power companies to set up rules to protect nuclear materials and designate information related to the security of nuclear facilities as "secrets." The rules apply to information related to equipment designed to prevent attacks on facilities and thefts of nuclear materials, emergency contact systems and management of doorways at facilities and so on.

Under the revised law, the government conducts inspections once a year to confirm whether designation of information as secrets is appropriate and such secrets are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. If nuclear plant operators and administrative officers leak such information, they will face up to one year in prison or fines of up to 1 million yen.

Meanwhile, according to the NRA's secretariat, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), the NRA's predecessor, set up a nonbinding oversight committee on protection of secrets related to nuclear materials, which consisted of university professors, lawyers and the like. The panel was established because of concerns arising during Diet deliberations that nuclear-related information could be designated as secrets freely by the government and nuclear plant operators and outsiders had no way of knowing what were made secrets. The oversight panel had held a meeting almost every year since 2005 to check whether information was designated as secrets beyond necessity.

However, when the NISA was replaced by the NRA in September 2012 -- after the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake -- the oversight committee was abolished. What should be done over a third-party body has been left up to the NRA and no discussions have been made on the issue ever since. Because of all this, the NISA and the NRA confirmed designation by nuclear plant operators of information as secrets at a total of 60 nuclear facilities in fiscal 2012, but the secrets were not checked by a third-party body, sources say. The NRA secretariat has not revealed the number of secrets, saying, "We have not counted them."

There was not a case in which the oversight committee had not judged in the past that information was improperly designated as a secret, but in its last meeting held in March 2012, the panel screened 380 pieces of secret information, sources say.

The NRA secretariat's nuclear security office says, "We recognize the need for third-party checking. Although it could be judged that inspections by the NRA (which is highly independent from the Cabinet) are sufficient and it is not necessary to set up a third-party body, we are tied down to other duties so that no discussions have been made at the NRA."

Masahiro Usaki, professor at Dokkyo Law School, said that it is difficult for the NRA to play the role of an oversight body, which consists of experts on information disclosure and crisis management, because it is tasked mainly with handling technical problems although it is highly independent of the government. He said a third-party oversight body should be established as soon as possible. "The government is negligent in its duties because it has left secret designation up to electric power companies even though the public has lost confidence in nuclear power," he added.

December 12, 2013(Mainichi Japan)