ACRC selects Anyang City for the most excellent ombudsman award for 2009

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) assessed the operation result of the ombudsman for 2009 and selected Anyang City, Korea Water Resources Corporation and the Military Manpower Administration as the most excellent ombudsman for leading efforts to resolve people's complaints and protect people's rights.

The ACRC has been giving "National Sinmoongo Award" to organizations and individuals since 2008 that contributed to the protection of people's rights by resolving people's complaints and improving institutions in an effort to reach social consensus to make a country "with no unfair treatment and clean society," and to develop the spirit of Sinmoongo.

In order to select awardees for excellent ombudsman for 2009, the ACRC accepted applications from around 640 organizations, including central administrative organizations, municipalities and public organizations and assessed their performance based on 12 criteria including independence, specialty, relevance and efficiency to resolve civil appeals.

Anyang City, which is awarded the presidential commendation as the most excellent organization, has run the Ombudsman for Civil Appeals since February of 2009 with experts in various fields, e.g. lawyers and professors actively protecting its citizens' rights and interests to recommend corrections for illegal and unfair administrative practices and improve irrational administrative system. In particular, the city has led efforts to resolve companies' complains by running the Corporate SOS system.

The Korea Water Resources Corporation, which is awarded the prime minister commendation has made efforts to resolve civil complaints through VOC Integrated System, which deals with land compensations and the Website for Compensation Information where assessment result can be checked and the Certificate to Accept the Land can be issued.

Awards for ombudsman will be given on February 26 together with those who are awarded for anti-corruption activities.