Gov’t to Abolish Instructions Made Under Roh Leadership

The Lee Myung-bak administration has come up with measures to effectively abolish instructions, regulations and guidelines made by the Roh Moo-hyun government.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Security announced yesterday that it began reviewing inefficient instructions and regulations as ordered by Minister Won Sei-hoon.

Although instructions and regulations are subordinate to laws, it seems that details of policies made by the Roh Moo-hyun administration will face a grave change since instructions and regulations are the principles and standards on which the nation’s systems and policies are made.

▽ Abolition and enactment

Minister Won reportedly urged ministry officials not to unconditionally follow the existing instructions and regulations but review them from the perspective of the general public.

The ministry decided to abolish all instructions, regulations and guidelines and enact new ones. It means the new government wants to distinguish itself from the previous one, instead of revising some parts in need of change.

Choi Doo-yeong, in charge of policy planning at the ministry, explained, “We’ll overhaul established instructions, regulations and guidelines so as to make them fit for the philosophy of the new government.”

The ministry is scheduled to abolish some 80 instructions and regulations, out of 216 made before 2005.

Most of them are in regards to personnel management, organizations, local autonomy and financial affairs. Relevant departments should report current conditions, purpose of establishment, and the date of abolition to the minister by next weekend.

Sources from the ministry said, “Our decision to abolish all of them will not cause any problem since we’ll enact new ones immediately after abolishing the old ones.”

▽ Similar moves by other ministries

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology abolished 29 guidelines including 17 rules made under Roh’s leadership when it released its measures to give more authority to schools on April 15.

The education ministry abolished the guidelines that are deemed to have deprived schools of authority, including the guidelines for subscription to children’s newspapers by elementary school students, regulation on presents for teachers and education of current issues.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that it would abolish or revise 15 instructions including seven rules made by the former Government Information Agency and eight others created by the former Ministry of Culture.

The Ministry of Environment ordered its officials to report any notices or guidelines that attempt to regulate people without legal grounds, or those that regulate the people’s lives too much.

Economy-related ministries and agencies will decide whether to revise regulations and instructions after closely watching the moves of the Public Administration Ministry.

uni@donga.com