Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga on Jan. 10 acknowledged the government violated the public records law by mishandling “now-destroyed” lists of invitees to tax-funded cherry blossom viewing parties hosted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

“I believe that the government’s handling of the documents violated stipulations of the public records management law and the Cabinet Office’s rules concerning official documents,” Suga told a news conference.

When asked why the records were not managed properly, Suga said he is still inquiring officials who were in charge of the documents related to the sakura-viewing events.

He also speculated that the officials may not have had a keen understanding of the procedures set under the law.

For example, Suga confirmed that the officials did not gain the legally required consent from the prime minister to dispose of the official documents after their retention period expired.

Recent revelations about the guest lists have fueled speculation that the Abe administration has gone out of its way to conceal the names of people who were invited to the parties.

The annual sakura-viewing events hosted by the prime minister in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district are supposed to honor individuals with remarkable accomplishments in various fields.

But since Abe regained the post in December 2012, the parties have ballooned in size with guests whose remarkable achievements include supporting the ruling Liberal Democratic Party or improving the re-election chances of LDP candidates.

Many of Abe’s supporters from his electoral constituency in Yamaguchi Prefecture were invited to the parties at the expense of taxpayers.

Opposition parties have pressed for the guest lists, but the government maintains that the documents have already been shredded in accordance with Cabinet Office rules.

Under the public records management law, which went into force in 2011, government employees are required to register official documents into the government’s record management database if their designated retention periods are more than a year.

Suga on Jan. 9 said that the guest lists for the sakura parties from fiscal 2013 to fiscal 2017 have not only been destroyed, but they were also not even registered as official documents.

“According to the Cabinet Office, officials handling the lists at that time say the lists from fiscal 2013 to 2017 were not entered in the government’s official record management database,” Suga said.

Those lists were supposed to have been entered and kept for one year.

From fiscal 2018, the retention period was changed to less than one year.

Government officials are required under the law to specify the title of the documents, the period of retention and the procedures taken when they dispose of official data after the period expires.

A comprehensive list of such official documents is released to the public so that individuals can request disclosure of specific records.

But that information does not exist for any of the guest lists.

At the Jan. 9 news conference, reporters kept asking Suga if the government’s failure to enter the lists into the government database constitutes a violation of the law.

But he avoided directly answering the question and instead pointed reporters toward the Cabinet Office for details on operations of the government’s document management system.

The Cabinet Office had not responded to The Asahi Shimbun’s request for information by the night of Jan. 9.

Yukiko Miki, head of nonprofit organization Access-Info Clearinghouse, said the recent discoveries clearly show that the lists were not managed properly as official records.

She also doubted the veracity of the government’s repeated assertions that those lists were destroyed after the passage of their one-year retention periods.

“Nobody knows if that is truly the case since no evidence remains,” she said.

Miki also said the absence of all invitee lists from fiscal 2013 to 2017 is “too unnatural to be regarded as a simple mistake.”

“It gives the impression that officials intentionally did not enter the lists” because they showed who was invited, she said.

(This article was written by Ryutaro Abe and Naoki Kikuchi.)