Local Residents to Be Allowed to Take Legal Action against Local Government

The Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs (MOGAHA) has decided to enact a new bill this year which would help local residents take legal action against unlawful doings of the local government body they belong to. In addition, the MOGAHA has decided to establish a law that would drastically transfer the rights of the central government to local governments.

MOGAHA Minister Hur Sung-kwan announced the measures on Monday as a follow-up to the recently-legislated special bill that promotes decentralization of the central government.

By the end of this year, the MOGAHA plans to enact a bill that would allow local residents to file complaints directly against local government employees, including the heads of the local governments, for account fraud. Implementation of this bill is expected to take place next year. In addition, the MOGAHA plans to enact a recall system by 2005 that would allow local residents to bring down elected local government leaders or local makers.

The MOGAHA has also decided to prepare detailed plans to strengthen the autonomy of the nation’s education and police systems in a bid to promote legislation that would strengthen the autonomy of the education system and the police system starting next year.

The MOGAHA plans to establish its ‘first-phase decentralization law’ by early this year in order to hand over 835 duties of 20 ministers to local governments.

Along with such measures, the MOGAHA plans to transfer overlapping or similar tasks between the central government and special local administrative bodies, which directly carry out some tasks of the central government, to the local administrative bodies.

Moreover, the MOGAHA has decided to conduct a survey this month to find officials interested in being transferred to another government body in an effort to promote personnel exchanges in earnest between central government officials and local government officials beginning in March of this year.

Jong-Hoon Lee taylor55@donga.com