Exception Rules For Government Information Access

This LLM Thesis focuses on exception rules governing government information access, throughwhich the paper goes into government information access as a whole. This paper is basically composed ofthree parts, namely, theory, practice and prospect aspect of the subject. In the theory part, author reviews the concept of government information access, which is one of thetwo backbones of modern democracy and composed of compulsory disclosure of information and disclosureupon application, pointing out that right to know is the underlying theory. Then author defines exceptionrules for freedom of information. Exceptions as defined in this paper include exemption or immunity fromfreedom of information act and non-applicability of the act. The paper then goes into details of contentexception of accessible information, as counter-definition of government's disclosure obligation, andremedies for access. Exemplary legislation from US, Canada, Japan and Hong Kong SAR is cited Then author goes to check the current situation of exception rules scattered in China's legislation,despite of non-existence of specialized information act. State secret, privacy and know-how are regarded asmajor exceptions and are discussed in details, from their respective meanings, statutory protection toinfluence on information access in real life. Also concepts of such as working confidential and intelligenceare reviewed. In the prospect part, author rewinds China's legislation endeavors of information freedom and probesinto exception rules therewith. Then author wraps up the paper by criticizing, exploring and proposing, froma point of view of exception rules, a framework and timetable for China's information access legislation. The objective of this paper is to inspire discussion of a China-fitted information access regime,considering China's continuous democratization progress, which seems to author an irreversible one.Coverage of accessible information is core component of the regime and an in-depth discussion of exceptionrules will help bringing out a good information act for a new ruled-by-constitution China.