Keep records of what the government decided and why, and open them to the public after a set number of years
Steps to make it happen
- When officials meet to make big decisions, they write down who said what.
- Emails and chats about a decision are also kept as records.
- Officials also keep the other options they rejected and the advice of experts.
- An archive that is separate from the government keeps the records so no one can throw them away on their own.
- Even for secret records, the government sets at the start how many years later they will be shown.
- When the time is up, everyone can read the records.
- Anyone who deletes or changes a record is held responsible.
- In the future, it becomes normal for anyone to check later why a decision was made.
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The proposal in detail
This proposal covers every organization that uses public power: national and local government offices, the police and the military, bodies that handle diplomacy and intelligence, and public corporations owned by the government. What must be kept is not only the document of the final decision but the whole process that led to it. This includes minutes of meetings, the other options that were considered and the reasons they were not chosen, advice received from outside experts and interest groups, and emails and chats about public work. If someone uses a personal smartphone or a message feature that deletes itself, they still have a duty to move anything about public work into the record. Whether a record may be thrown away is not decided by the organization that made it, but by an archive of public records that is independent of the government. A record that needs to be kept secret gets a date for release at the moment it is made. The time limit may differ by field, and records on diplomacy and security can be held longer, but secrets with no time limit are not allowed. Extending a time limit requires an independent review, and the reasons must be made public. When records are released, parts involving personal privacy or investigations still under way can be blacked out, but the catalog listing what records exist is made public. Not making a record, deleting it, or changing it brings responsibility, such as discipline or criminal penalties.
BenefitsBeing checked later makes today's decisions more careful
If decision-makers know that their choices will one day be made public and that the reasons will be read, they will check the facts and try to decide in ways they can explain. This is a hidden but strong brake on corruption and favors for friends and family. When a response to a crisis or a major policy fails, the record lets people trace where something was missed, so the blame does not simply fall on one person and the lesson can lead to better systems. Records also act as a shield for public servants at work, because they can show that an unfair order came from above or that pressure came from outside. And when records are opened decades later, historians and citizens can examine the decisions of that time, and society can know its own past accurately. Other tools, such as freedom of information, whistleblowing, and independent review bodies, also work only when the original records exist. It is a basic principle for checking power that can be built into the system of any country.
DrawbacksHonest debate may fade, and talks may move to places with no record
What opponents worry about most is that when people know everything will be recorded and eventually made public, they will stop speaking frankly inside government. Half-formed ideas, dissenting views, and worries that are not yet settled are essential to good decisions, but people may fear that their words will be taken out of context and attacked later, and write only safe, bland things. Important talks could move to standing chats and dinners that leave no record, which could backfire and make the decision process even harder to see. In diplomacy and security, there is also concern that other countries or sources of information may be less willing to cooperate if they fear that promises or identities will be revealed in the future. Sorting, storing, and checking huge amounts of digital communication before release also takes a lot of money and staff, a heavy burden for countries and local governments with little to spare. There is also the question of how to protect the privacy of staff and citizens who appear in the records, so deciding how far the duty to record should reach requires drawing the line carefully.
Learn the background
Around the world, many ways have been built to ask a government "why did you do that?" about its decisions, such as questions in the legislature, court cases, news reporting, and requests for public information. But all of them assume that a record of how the decision was made still exists. Without records, a request for information only brings the answer "it does not exist." In recent years, discussions inside governments have moved from formal talks in meeting rooms to emails, chats, and messages that delete themselves. This is more convenient, but more and more important decisions are made where no one can see, and then simply vanish. In many countries, there have been reports of large numbers of documents being destroyed before a change of government, and of key exchanges that could not be found when a crisis was reviewed afterward. Without records, we cannot learn from failures, correct wrongdoing, or let later generations know their history. The very foundation of democracy, checking power after the fact, is quietly crumbling.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
It helps pay for the server and the AI's planting
This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-15d) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes