Photo/Illutration The Finance Ministry (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

After losing a legal fight to keep them out of the public eye, the government plans to release the principal documents on the sale of state-owned land at a steep discount to a private school operator within a year.

The documents will include those likely compiled by a former Finance Ministry bureaucrat who committed suicide after being pressured to falsify some of the related records.

At a Lower House Financial Committee session on March 4, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said the government concluded that the disclosure is “necessary particularly in the public interest” based on instructions from Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

In the first batch, records of negotiations with the Moritomo Gakuen educational institution, which purchased the land in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, in 2016 to build an elementary school, will be released in about a month, including previously undisclosed exchanges.

Toshio Akagi, who worked at the ministry’s Kinki Local Finance Bureau, committed suicide after he was forced to falsify administrative documents related to the land sale.

When Akagi’s widow, Masako, sought disclosure of documents that the ministry voluntarily submitted to the Public Prosecutors Office through a freedom-of-information request in 2021, the ministry refused to release them without even acknowledging if they existed.

An Osaka High Court ruling that deemed the ministry’s response as illegal has been finalized after the government decided not to appeal it last month.

Ishiba told the committee session that he had asked government officials to release the documents as soon as possible, excluding those whose disclosure poses problems.

The government plans to withhold communications with prosecutors and also black out parts that violate individuals’ privacy rights.

Masako has called on the government to disclose the documents as broadly as possible to uncover the truth.

Akagi recorded details of falsifications in a 518-page document, known as the “Akagi File,” which was released in 2021.

Additional documents likely compiled by Akagi will be made public in early June.

When Masako filed the freedom-of-information request in August 2021, the government refused to release the documents, arguing that activities of investigative authorities will be revealed if the government discusses the documents’ existence.

Masako took the case to court in October the same year.

The Osaka District Court went along with the government’s arguments and rejected Masako’s demand.

In March last year, the Information Disclosure and Personal Information Protection Review Board, which is under the internal affairs ministry, said it will not pose a problem even if the government discloses whether the documents exist.

The government ignored the board’s recommendation, however.

But the Osaka High Court in January ruled the government’s response as illegal on the grounds that the disclosure will not hinder investigations as prosecutors already decided not to indict those involved in the land sale.

Among other falsifications, the names of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his widow, Akie, were deleted from documents.

Akie temporarily served as honorary principal of the elementary school that Moritomo Gakuen planned to open in Toyonaka.

(This article was written by Shinya Tokushima and Shunsuke Abe.)

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