ACRC Accelerates Strategic Support
to Expand Local Ombudsman

- The ACRC cooperates with Local Ombudsman to provide support, including education, experience, information and case sharing -

(19th Aug. 2021, ACRC)

The Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (Chairperson: Jeon Hyun-Heui, ACRC) supports establishment of Local Ombudsman in each region to resolve complaints of local residents and protect their rights and interests. As such, a series of local government created their Local Ombudsman.

According to the ACRC, 58 local governments have introduced and been operating Local Ombudsman as of August this year, up by 9 from the end of last year.

* 30 local governments in 2017 → 37 in 2018 → 43 in 2019 → 49 in 2020 → 58 in August this year

In addition, over 40 local governments in such as Seoul, Incheon, Gyeongi, and Chungcheongnam-do are in the process of creating Local Ombudsman, such as through enacting municipal ordinance and appointing Local Ombudsman members. Therefore, the number of Local Ombudsman is expected to increase further in the future.

Local Ombudsman is a rights protection body established under local governments in accordance with the Act on the Prevention of Corruption and the Establishment and Management of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission. It plays the same role of the ACRC on the regional level, such as making recommendation for correcting unlawful and unfair administrative disposition by conducting impartial and objective investigation on complaints from the third person perspective.

From last year, the ACRC has implemented measures to facilitate Local Ombudsman by creating a platform for mutual exchange between the central government and the local governments through the ACRC National Consultative Council, while making the information related to the visit to organizations, consultation, and establishment and operation of Local Ombudsman available on its website.

In the second half of this year, the ACRC plans to further promote the establishment of Local Ombudsman by collaborating with the Local Ombudsman in Seoul, Ulsan, Gyeonggi, and Chungcheong which handled high volume of complaints or showed excellent outcome in addressing civil complaints through corrective recommendations, expression of opinion or mediation.

For the upper-level local governments as well as lower-level local governments with over 500,000 population which do not have any plan for creating Local Ombudsman yet, the ACRC will support them to come up with plans to create their own Local Ombudsman by enabling them to benchmark actual operation examples from the Local Ombudsman with excellent performance.

For those local governments that already have plans to create their Local Ombudsman, the commission will present ways to enact municipal ordinance, and form and operate the Local Ombudsman with best practices, while providing customized support in each stage with consultation for each local government.

Also, to facilitate Local Ombudsman, multi-dimensional supportive measures will be taken, including education, experience sharing and information sharing.

First, the members of Local Ombudsman will be invited to observe onsite complaint consultation and handling on ‘Moblie Shinmungo’, ACRC’s outreach complaint-handling bus, and on-site mediation, so that they can have first-hand experience about the process of addressing collective civil complaints or complaints related to social issues.

Moreover, the commission will host workshops for 235 members of Local Ombudsman to train their complaint handling technique, present cases, and share information. Also, it will share complaints that were resolved by Local Ombudsman on its website.

Director General Ahn Junho of Ombudsman Bureau said, “the number of complaints received through the e-People platform is reaching 10 million cases. Under such circumstances, the role of Local Ombudsman is all the more important than before as it can swiftly address complaints of local citizens.” He added, “by working with Local Ombudsman with excellent operation, the ACRC will actively provide active support for establishment and operation of Local Ombudsman program in accordance with situations in different local conditions.”