Legal Protection For The Right To Know

The right to know ( RK ), which was first put forth after World War II, has been increasingly valued as a crucial component of human rights, and has become an essential element consisting of democratic and political rights in a modern information society. The author of this thesis has distinguished and analyzed the existing conceptualizations of the RK, redefined its connotation and extension based on its characterizations, and further categorized the RK into the right referring to public law and the right referring to private law.Since the RK sets rules on access to the declassified information or records held by government and administration agencies, its core is openness, transparency and freedom of the information to public. The object of the RK is the public information held by governmental bodies but there is an inequality in the subjects between right and obligation. The RK contains a variety of contents such as right to acceptance, right to inquiry, right to quest aid, and so forth. Its characterizations including fundamentality, popularity, multiplicity and public-benefits, make this right a constitutional status.Having investigated the history of the RK, the author thinks that the consciousness of the RK was originated in the evolution of democracy andlegislation. The western thought about freedom of press ----"Marketplaceof Ideas" gave birth to the freedom of expression, and designated the RK as a subordinated right of the freedom of expression. On the other hand, the constitutional thoughts lay a foundation for this right, leading to be a new component of human rights.After analyzing the legal systems of the RK in the major countries of the world, the author has discovered that the countries have legislated a variety of laws and regulations to warrant public to freely access the declassified information held by governmental bodies, and media plays a main channel role for public to understand and exercise the RK by a means of reporting and transferring governmental information rapidly to the public. Since the core of the RK is to restrain the power of government bodies by mandating them to open the information to public regularly, a series of laws and regulations derived from Information Openness Legislations are essential for an effective legal system of the RK. On the other hand, it is an unachievable mission that government bodies set up a legal system of the RK voluntarily. After all, the legislations can be only successfully influenced and driven by bottom-up forces : non-governmental organizations /institutions.The thesis has analyzed the current status of the RK in China and has investigated the legislation experiences/lessons occurred in other countries, and then makes a proposal on the antedating establishment of a legal system for freedom of information based on the political and economic status in present China. Since the main obstacle in contemporary Chinese legal secret system is lack of the RK, the author proposes a solution that will combine ramification of the existing Secret Law with legislation of Information Openness, and suggests reconstruction of the National Secret Assessment System after analyzing its defects. A legal right cannot be effectively executed without a remedy, thus the remedy for the RK is a crucial element of a legal system of warranty to the RK. Having investigated various formats and features of the remedies for the RK in other countries and pondered current circumstances in China, the author suggests that Public Interest Litigation is a basic element consisting of the new remedy format for the RK.Throughout this thesis, the main idea is to restrain governmental powers with public rights. Only establishes a service-oriented government which is responsible to its citizens, the RK will be effectively implemented and warranted.