The General Research On Writing The Right To Know Into China’s Constitution

The Right to Know is a fundamental human right and it is also an important civil rights and political power.The achievement of the rights of citizens or a reasonable distribution of information resources is inseparable from it. But the important right is not clearly reflected in our Constitution, which makes the Right to Know in China has been at a disadvantage.The purpose of this paper is to make the Right to Know concluded in the Constitution, by modifying the specific provisions of the Constitution to make the Right to Know clear. And then the Right to Know can play fundamental function in law of the State Constitution, and it also can guide other laws and regulations to modify and standard the specific content of the Right to Know, be modified accordingly and norms, while strengthening the system construction right from the point of view, in order to achieve full protection of the Right to Know. It can realize the all-round protection of the Right to Know form the three points of view: information disclosure system reform, e-government reform and the reform of the media.Since the study of the Right to Know involves law, journalism and many other disciplines, this research into the Constitution for the Right to Know uses the semantic analysis method, comparative analysis method, data analysis method and so on. The full text is divided into five parts:The first part is the introduction. It firstly introduces the historical background and opportunities when the Right to Know is concluded into the Constitution. And then it analyzes the current status of the study of China’s Right to Know. It analyzes important books and journals about the Right to Know and points the weakness of them from the perspective of the Right to Know concluded into the Constitution, paving the way to make this thesis; the second part of is about the basic theory of the Right to Know. First it makes it clear that the Right to Know as a legal concept was produced in the United States. In the late 1970s it passed in China and it was developed in the 1990s. Then it analyzes the existing research of scholars about the study attempting to put forward the definition of the Right to Know from "know", "love", "right" three elements:citizens, corporations and community organizations in accordance with national laws and procedures enjoy without any obstacle all kinds of political, economic, cultural, social and personal rights and freedoms of real information related to the vital interests; the third part of the thesis studies the current situation of the protection of the Right to Know and the necessity of citizen’s Right to Know concluded into the Constitution. Firstly it analyzes the current situation of the protection of the Right to Know:first, there is no specific provisions in Constitution to make the Right to Know clear; the second is the laws and regulations related to the Right to Know are of low rank, and they are lack of systems; the third is relevant regulations about information published by the existing government are not perfect. the fourth part of the thesis studies the obstacle,feasibility and significance about the lag behind of the Right to Know. Through analysis this thesis lists following meaningful aspects about the Right to Know concluded in the Constitution:first, it helps protect the citizens’ demand for information which can achieve a reasonable distribution of information resources; second, it helps satisfy the needs of citizens to exercise state power, ensuring the realization of the fundamental rights of citizens; thirdly, it is in favor of strengthening the construction of the rule of law and democracy and the construction of the Constitution, ensuring that the people are masters of the nation; the fifth part is the suggestions about the Right to Know presented in the Constitution:first, amend the constitution to make the Right to Know clear. Through compare between constitutional interpretation and the constitutional amendment, it puts forward my own proposals about modifying specific legal provisions; secondly, improve the relevant legislation about the Right to Know from three points of view:information disclosure, confidentiality and freedom of the press; thirdly, strengthen the system construction about the Right to Know from three points of view:information disclosure system reform, e-government reform and the reform of the media; fourth, it briefly talks about the relief about the Right to Know.Taken all aspects together, this paper has four innovations:first, it analyzes other scholars’ definition of the concept of the Right to Know from perspective of the broad sense, narrow sense, rights, obligations. Then it puts forward my own definition of the Right to Know from three elements:"know", "love", "right"; secondly, it no longer just talks about the protection of other rights by the Right to Know, but also it focuses on the importance of the Right to Know in the constitution for the rational allocation of information resources; thirdly, it not only orderly analyzes the necessity and significance of the Right to Know in the Constitution, but also it provides specific and feasible suggestions about the constitution, especially the amendments about the specific provisions of the Constitution; forth, look for evidence about the Right to Know presented in the Constitution from the perspective of government documents like the report of the Seventeenth National Congress and the report of the eighteenth National Congress. It’s the point where other articles don’t cover such comprehensive and innovative analysis.