On The Citizens' Right To Know

The right to know is basic human rights, the modern concept contains ancient topic : democracy, the rule of law and human rights. The contents of the right to know include four parts, the right to know the politics, the right to know the society, the right to know personal data information, the right to know related information between interested person. Know regime means that a natural person, legal persons and other organizations are legally entitled the right to know the activities and background information of the state organs and functionaries. Know power is the core content of the right to know, and also the foundation on which the right to know first and becomes constitutional. Community right to know refers to a natural person, legal persons and other organizations that have the right to know their interested social phenomena and social life. Individual links with all kinds of external environment at any time, while external environment affect every individual. Social individuals have a right to know various phenomena and affairs happening around them which influence their action. The right to know personal information data is the natural person legally has the right to know the information about their own. This right is purely private nature, the exclusive rights of natural persons, legal persons and other organizations do not have that right. Only because natural person has the right of personality and , the natural person become the exclusive subject of this right. The right to know the information between interested person is natural person, legal persons and other organizations have the right to know the information of each other when they have formed some kind of interest relation or statutory or contractual relations of interest. This right to know is different from the right to know politics, the right to know society and the right to know personal information and data. It has unique attributes. And it bases on certain interest relations. It is also the right of private nature. The right to know has 5 characteristics: universality, dualism, fundamentalism, integrity and parity. First, the universality of the right to know is one of the basic characteristics. The main body of the right to know is extensive, and it includes citizens, legal person and other social organizations. Secondly, the right to know the scope is broad, across the public and private areas. The dualism nature of the right to know means it is both a procedural rights and a substantive right. Although the right to know are widespread in all branches of law, the right to know is not a general-right but a pre-right that guarantee other rights to exercise. Without the basic right of the right to know, there is no real significance to the political and democratic rights. The right to know is a product in the interaction between "informed" and "inform". It's a combination of positive and negative right. Because of the exercise of the right to know must pass the main acts by the other side's compliance with its obligations, and it can be finally realized. The possession and consumption of the right to know is a equal course of completion for all the main body. The equal right to know is the key to justice and the rule of law, which is the key point to the parity of the right to know.The theoretical foundation of the right to know of the citizen currently has several theories: humanity foundation, the people's sovereignty, the interests and rights advocates, the basis of equality, the foundation of liberty. For the main body of the right to know, why there should be "informed"? Basically, it's due to mistrust of humanity. All of the people with power easily abuse of power, and if abuse without restrictions, powers will be exercised with such unlimited power "for the development of personal greed, to satisfy their own desires, The results were really seems to be ignoring the public interest and endanger the well-being of the public." The idea of the right to know is based on this logic: "the government does most of the evil things secretly ... if they are informed to the public and submitted to discussion, they probably would not have happened." If the "basic humanity" solves to the problem of why people want to know, then the "people's sovereignty" theory will answer the problem how the person can be informed. As the "sovereignty" of the mandate, the people themselves have the power to monitor the powers they authorized, and the violations of power gives people the right to know in order to monitor and curb the power. Once the right to know can not against the expansion of power and violations, the last retort of their sovereignty is to delegated powers. It is all the logic of the right to know which is based on the sovereignty of the people, but also backing of the people's right to. "Right is the interests that is protected by law." As a specific right -- the right to know, but also because the importance of "know"(interest), citizens have the desire to know, and advocates a "right to know" (rights) to recognize and protect their own interests.(realization of interests).Overseas, the law and regulation firstly involving the right to know appear in the field of both public law and private law. With the rising of capitalist economy in Europe, the private law and public law inherit and develop relevant provisions of the right to know. Particularly since the beginning of the 19th century, with the progress and development of the democracy in capitalism society, the flushing of products into people's daily lives, people increasingly demand to know the political decision-making and social economical relations. Citizen's desire to know social and political status and information of members rises to an unprecedented extent.In China, the legal practice of the right to know dating back to the eighth century BC, the beginning of which have been called the "Spring and Autumn Annals" era. As of June 30, 2006 only, China proposes the 30 local laws and regulations, 32 departmental regulations, 96 local regulations which protect people's right to know. All these show that the protection of the citizen's right to know has made great progress.In order to perfect the system of our citizens' right to know, first of all, through the legislative civic right to know, in the Constitution clearly stipulates the right of citizens to know that the formulation of the "Freedom of Information Act", amend "the State Secrets Law" drawn up in 1987, and enacted amended the "People's Republic of China files law" drawn up inl987, amended in1996. Two laws passed 10 years since drawn up. It has a serious gap with the modern society, and is not conducive to the protection of the citizen's right to know. Secondly, we should strengthen public administration to protect citizens' right to know. Disclosure political information is inevitable requirement to at this stage, and also the legal needs of the existing constitution. The third, we should make full use of judicial functions, and strengthen the judicial protection of the right to know. The fourth is to deepen the legal research to the right to know, and make clear the right attributes in theory.As part of the civil rights, the right to know has been of the concerns of the government and community. But it hasn't been identified as a fundamental right in the Constitution. Information disclosure is the important obligations and responsibilities of modern democratic government, and its essence is to protect the citizen's right to know. It's often been seen trampled on or ignored in daily life. Whether the right to know is recognized as a basic human right by the nation partly reflects a country's level of civilization.