Court rejects milk standards information request

A Beijing court ruled on Monday that China's top health authority does not have to reveal details of a 2010 conference in which it set news quality standards for milk.

Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court dismissed an administrative appeal filed by Zhao Zhengjun, a consumer from Henan province, who had requested that the National Health and Family Planning Commission release details of the conference, including the contributions of various experts.

The new standards set in 2010 lowered the permissible protein content of milk while increasing the permissible bacteria level from no more than 500,000 bacteria per milliliter to 2 million, according to the plaintiff.

The new standards were made public after the 2010 conference, but the commission did not release details of the discussions that took place.

During the court hearing, Zhao said that such procedural details are of interest to consumers, and that the public has a right to know how the standards are set and what suggestions were made by experts.

"I'm a consumer. I need to know whether or not the food I eat every day is safe," said Zhao. "But in our country, information held by government departments is kept hidden from the public, which is why I filed the lawsuit."

"I always keep my eyes on the disclosure of administrative information, and I just want to know why the standards are different from before."

Zhao said that the health commission, as the government department responsible for setting standards and overseeing the food industry, has an obligation to explain how and why the standards were determined. He said the proceedings of the commission should be made public voluntarily.

"I don't know why the authority has always refused to publish these details, because what I want to know is not a national secret, nor does it fall under the State Council rules for the disclosure of government information," he added.

However, the authority said that the publication of the proceedings of the 2010 conference has nothing to do with the issue of public rights to information.

"The summary document from the conference doesn't show the final results for the standard. Instead, it is just the procedural information from the conference," said Zhang Xudong, a representative of the commission.

"When we made the draft of the standards, we solicited opinions from the public for about two months. In other words, we've made the information available to the public and maintained transparency in our work from the beginning."

Under the current Food Safety Law, procedural information such as conference summaries cannot be disclosed to the public, according to a lawyer for the commission.

A number of experts were asked to explain the new standards to the public as soon as they were set, the lawyer added.

But Zhao said that not enough information has been made public, "which is why I hoped the authority would publish the summary document."

Long Fei, the judge for the appeal case, supported the commission's position, identifying the summary document as internal information and not suitable for public disclosure.

Publishing such material could prevent experts from sharing their views in future, causing them to keep vital information to themselves, he said.

After Monday's ruling was announced, Zhao told China Daily that he will appeal to a higher court, adding that his aim is to push the government to become more transparent in its work.