On The Right To Know And Its Legal Protection

The right to know is a new human right arising after the Second War. Whether the legal system of the right to know is perfect or not can reflect the level of a country's democratic constitutionalism directly. Beginning with the basic problems of the right to know, connecting with the legislative condition in our country and using the experiences of other countries about the legal provisions of the right to know for reference, the writer explores superficially the legal protection of the right to know in our country. The article consists of four parts.The first part deals with the definition of the right to know, its certainty of existence, its theoretical basis and great significance to modern society.The second part states the legal provisions of the right to know in some foreign countries. The legal system of the right to know in America and German has been emphasized. The provisions about the right in the international instruments on human rights have also been stated. As to the ways of the legal protection of the right to know used by the foreign countries, the writer summarizes and concludes that there are three ways: The first is that the right to know has been stated in constitution, instead of enacting special regulation, such as German. The second is that only the law of freedom of information has been enacted, but the right to know hasn't been stated in constitution definitely, such as America. The third is that not only has the right to know been stated in constitution, but also the law of freedom of information has been enacted, such as Sweden.In the third part, from several respects, the writer demonstrates that the right to know must be stated in the constitution of China definitely. Furthermore, how to state the right to know in the constitution has been designed.The last part concerns with the problem how to strengthen thelegislation of general statute of the right to know in our country. The legal protection of the right to know doesn't lie on the acknowledgement in the constitution, which is the justification of the legislation of the general statutes. What' more, we must strengthen the legislation of the general statutes of the right to know. So, the writer suggests that freedom of information, administrative procedure law, open meetings act, privacy act and press law must be enacted and developed. And some suggestion about the main contents of freedom of information and other laws have been proposed.