ACRC Says “Request for Active Administration Service, And Report Passive Administration Service!”

- The ACRC introduces the Active Administration Service Requesting System for Citizens, enabling citizens to request for reprocessing the outcomes of their reports for passive administration service -

Chairperson Jeon Hyun-Heui is giving a briefing on the introduction of the Active Administration Service Requesting Systems for Citizens

(21st July 2021, ACRC)

Any citizens can request for active administration service on the e-People platform to improve unfair regulations and ensure active administrative service of public officials. If the outcome of passive administration service report is not satisfactory, citizens also can request for reexamination.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (Chairperson: Jeon Hyun-Heui, ACRC) established an institutional basis to prevent occurrence and recurrence of passive administration service, and to introduce the Active Administration Service Requesting System for Citizens which allows citizens to participate in active administration service.

*  Revised ｢Active Administration Operating Regulations｣, and revised ｢Active Administration Operating Regulations for Local Officials｣ were passed at the Cabinet meeting (July 20th)

The government has promoted relevant policies, such as exempting liabilities for the public officials who provided active administration service, and giving awards for excellent public officials, to facilitate active administration service. To further promote this, the ACRC introduced ‘Active Administration Service Requesting System for Citizens’ on the e-People to enable citizens to actively participate in active administration process and provide ideas.

When laws and regulations are lacking or not clear, citizens can make a request for active administration service for public interest through Active Administration Service Requesting System for Citizens. Then, the ACRC reviews the case from the perspective of citizens and encourages active administration by suggesting opinions to the concerned organizations or recommending improvement of systems.

For the last three years(2017-2019), as many as 260,000 policy proposals have been submitted from citizens to the e-People. But, only 4.6% (11,884 proposals) have been actually accepted for actual policies.

Down the road, the ACRC will review cases once citizens submit complaints for public interest through Active Administration Service Requesting System for Citizens to see whether they are in line with public interest. The commission will suggest appropriate directions and guidelines to the concerned organizations and take follow-up measures even if laws and regulations are lacking or unclear.

* Suggestions for directions (examples): efforts are required to address the requests through the support for active administration, such as pre-consulting and active administration committee.

As an organization spearheading the efforts to prevent passive administration service, the ACRC is operating a portal for reporting passive administration service. While the portal receives over 40,000 cases every year, only about 2% were accepted by each organization as actual passive administration service and handled accordingly.

As such, the ACRC improved the system to allow citizens to request for reconsideration of their cases to the commission when they have objection to the outcome of their report or inconvenience is not resolved even after reporting passive administration service.

There are different causes of passive administration service, including behavioral issue of the responsible official, lack of legal basis, unfair practices, or difficulty in coordinating interest.

Thus, the ACRC plans to identify the causes of passive administration service and come up with a comprehensive measures to prevent and resolve them fundamentally.

In addition, the commission will support education and consulting to enable public officials to abandon their passive attitude and provide active administration service, while reviewing and evaluating the handling of reported passive administration service cases.

Chairperson Jeon Hyun-Heui of the ACRC said, “as systemic measures were established to allow citizens to participate in active administration service and prevent passive administration service of public officials, it is expected that citizens will experience active administration service more.”

Attachment 1		Expected Examples of Utilizing Active Administration Service Requesting System for Citizens

< A case that a farmer who is recognized as a self-employed entrepreneur >

Citizen A works at an SME and her husband is a farmer growing grapes. The couple applied for preferential provision of child care to a local child care center for their second child. But, the application was rejected because they were not able to prove that the husband is a self-employed person.

(When complaint is handled in the ordinary manner) The responsible public official rejected the preferential provision of child care by requesting business license, certificate of income amount, certificate of standard mount of the imposition of VAT, and so on. This rejection is not unreasonable because it is based on the current regulations.

(When Active Administration Service Requesting System for Citizens is used) Citizen A requested for active administration service to be recognized as a self-employed entrepreneur based on farmland register and shipment certificate for agricultural products.

⇨ The ACRC deemed that the application of citizen A is reasonable, and it provided an opinion to consider to provide active administration service.

⇨ The office concerned accepted the application of the Citizen A and determined that active administration service is applicable for this case. Couple A and other couples in similar situations are now able to be recognized as double-income family.

< A case related to the application for building a warehouse in an industrial complex >

Citizen B runs an exporting company in an industrial complex. He raised a complaint to the local industrial complex corporation to extend his warehouse due to the increase of overseas supply. The responsible official replied that extension is not allowed as public land is situated in the middle of the lot for the warehouse.

(When complaint is handled in the ordinary manner) It is not unreasonable to reject the request of Citizen B based on the regulations that public land shall not be used by a company for its warehouse.

(When Active Administration Service Requesting System for Citizens is used) Citizen B requested active administration service with the intention that “extension of warehouse is possible without interfering the use of public property.”

⇨ The ACRC deems that the opinion of Citizen B is reasonable, and it recommends the relevant agency to consider active administration service.

⇨ The relevant agency confirms that the request from Citizen B is subject of active administration service, and he/she can extend his warehouse in the industrial complex including public land.

Attachment 2		Examples of Passive Administration Service

◇ After the introduction of the system for requesting re-examination of the outcome of passive administration service, the ACRC suggests its opinion to correct passive administration service when organizations do not handle the cases like the ones down below appropriately and provide only passive administration service.

• (Poor administration service for convenience) Object B is a component of Object A. When designing and making the Object B, actual measurement in advance is required to make sure their dimensions are fitting. However, Object B was manufactured without the measuring process. Ultimately, as the final products were not fitting with each other, additional work was required with extra cost.

• (Negligent administration service) Public Official A was responsible for coordinating the work related to land reclamation of Company B. Laws and regulations stipulate that the coordination shall be completed within a month. However, the Official A has neglected this for the reason that he/she is busy with other tasks. Eventually, the reclamation schedule has been delayed, and the Company B had several million KRW of loss. The Company B filed a claim for damage, and the Official A visited the Company B to make it to withdraw the claim.

• (Negligent administration service) Public Official A received an application for the reimbursement of eco-friendly agricultural product certification fee. But, he/she replied in an irresponsible manner, saying that the reimbursement of last year was processed December, so it will be the same this year. As a result, the citizen complained for the delay of reimbursement.

• (Administration service blindly following old ways) When signing a repair service agreement with Company A, the responsible official should have updated the labor cost of the service company based on the revised laws and regulations. However, he/she did not apply the revised laws and regulations, and rather used the same template drafted by his/her predecessor based on the previous laws and regulations. As a result, it caused civil complaints and protest from the company.

• (Government-centered administration) On a road in front of a main gate for a privately-owned land, County A installed a gazebo to promote tourism without notifying the land owner. The owner tried to build a house in the land, but the land was not accessible by cars due to the gazebo. So, the owner requested for the demolition of the gazebo. The responsible official said there is a budgetary issue, and promised the demolition of the gazebo earlier this year. But, due to the opposition of the head of the organization and neighboring citizens, demolition was delayed, causing inconvenience.