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Thirty year rule
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The "thirty year rule" is the popular name given to a law in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Australia that states that the yearly cabinet papers of a government will be released publicly thirty years after they were created.
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."
Usually the release occurs on 1 January of a particular year. The only papers not released (or if they are contained in other papers 'blacked out') are those which are deemed likely to cause "damage to the country's image, national security or foreign relations" if they were to be released.
A good example of this was when the British cabinet papers for 1973 were released - the papers covering September 11 were barred from release as that was the day of the coup by Augusto Pinochet against Chilean President Salvador Allende.[citation needed]
- Classified information in the United Kingdom
- Freedom of Information Act 2000
- Freedom of information in the United Kingdom
- Redaction
- The National Archives
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