The "thirty year rule" is the popular name given to a law in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and Australia that provides that the yearly cabinet papers of a government will be released publicly thirty years after they were created.
Contents |
In the United Kingdom, the Public Records Act 1958, amended in 1967, states that "Public records ....other than those to which members of the public have had access before their transfer ...., shall not be available for public inspection until they have been in existence for [thirty] years or such other period....as the Lord Chancellor may,.... for the time being prescribe as respects any particular class of public records." The rule was essentially two 30 year rules; one requiring that records be transferred from government departments to the Public Record Office (now The National Archives) at 30 years unless specific exemptions were given (by the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Council on Public Records), and that they were opened at such time unless they were deemed likely to cause "damage to the country's image, national security or foreign relations" if they were to be released.
This rule was changed by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (which came into force Jan 1st 2005). The FOI act essentially removed the 2nd of the 30 year rules (the access one), and replaced it with provisions allowing citizens to request a wide range of information before any time limit has expired, and also removing some of the exemptions which had previously applied at the 30 year point. After 30 years, information is transferred to The National Archives, and is reviewed under the FOI act to see if it should be opened. The only rationale for keeping it closed within The National Archives is if an FOI exemption applies.
As a result of this change, releases now happen monthly, rather than annually, and include more recent events, rather than only those over 30 years old.
An independent inquiry chaired by Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, recommended in January 2009 that the last restrictions on the release of information, such as cabinet minutes, should be reduced to a 15-year embargo and phased in over a 15-year period.[1]
In Australia, the 30 year rule applied to Commonwealth (federal) government records, except for Cabinet handbooks (closed for 50 years) and raw census records (closed for 99 years). These periods were set out in the Archives Act 1983.
In 2009 the Archives Act was amended to reduce closed period from 30 to 20 years, with Cabinet notebooks reduced from 50 to 30 years. Census records remain closed for 99 years to protect the privacy of individuals.[2]
Cabinet papers for a full year are released on 1 January each year.