법제처 로고

Globalization  of ‘K-law’

July is Law Month in Korea. Every year on July 17, we celebrate the promulgation of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. On the same day in 1948, the Government Organization Act was promulgated, the Korea’s “first law,” like planting a seed in a wasteland. Since then, numerous administrative laws have been made and amended as if plants grow new stems and leaves. After half a century, in March 2021, the “General Act on Public Administration was enforced” and it marked a turning point in development of law-governed administration and the administrative law system.

Administrative laws have a major impact on daily lives such as land, industry, welfare, environment, and education. The number of Korea’s administrative laws has rapidly increased in a complex modern society. Among 5,070 laws and regulations, administrative laws amount to 4,600. Administrative laws also had a lot of problems in terms of quality. The relevant regulations scattered across individual statutes without standards and principles made the people hard to understand laws and were the domain of lawyers. Even frontline institutions suffered difficulties in interpretation and application. Many in legal circles believed that the problem with our administrative laws lay in the lack of laws prescribing general principles and important systems. Nevertheless, until the General Act was enacted, there was no “law” that served as the principle and standard for the enforcement of administrative laws.

In this legislative reality, the inconvenience suffered by the people was not minor. As common administrative systems such as reporting and a penalty surcharge were stipulated differently in hundreds of individual statutes, administrative equity was weakened and a lot of confusion was caused. Even with the same reporting cases, some cases are simply accepted upon submitting a report, whereas in other cases, public officials review and reject it. The same systems were implemented differently without a unified standard. In the case of “objection system” that allows citizens to easily object to administrative dispositions before filing a lawsuit, whether or not objection is permitted was different according to each statute. In addition, although the principle of protection of trust and principle of prohibition of unfair association were already established by judicial precedents and theories, they were not specified in laws, which caused public officials to passively apply them.

In order to solve the problem, the government and legal circles had started to enact the General Act on Public Administration that was promulgated on March 23, 2021. In a word, the law prescribes principles and standards applicable to the overall administration. It codifies the principles and standards of administrative laws, such as law-governed administration and principle of equality, and contains a unified standard for systems scattered across individual laws, such as penalty surcharges and charges for compelling the compliance. This law will act as a “platform,” thereby streamlining the administrative law system. Without revising individual laws, amendment of this law will lead to improvement of systems. The legal circles and frontline administrative agencies evaluate that the law makes consistent enforcement standards available and relevant laws easier to understand.

The rights and interests of the people are more strongly protected. If it is thought that a disposition is wrong, the objection system can be universally used separately from litigation. More opportunities to raise objections to wrong dispositions are given to the people without going to a court. The period during which sanctions such as revocation of authorization or permission, business suspension, and penalty surcharges can be imposed is also limited to five years. This change aims to correct the practice of sudden closure of a business place after decades have passed since a law was unknowingly violated, which embarrassed a business operator, and to increase the predictability of public administration.

In addition, the law clarifies the legal basis for “proactive administration” of public officials. Article 7 of the Constitution stipulates that public officials are “servants of the entire people.” Furthermore, in the ever-changing modern society, the public sector requires more advanced capabilities than in the past. In keeping with the pace of development in the private sector, public administration of the future must be prepared based on creativity and expertise. In line with the Constitution and the spirit of the times, the law laid the foundation for the spread of proactive administration by stipulating that public officials should actively perform their duties for public interest. In preparation for the use of artificial intelligence (AI), it also contains the rationale for completely automating the disposition procedures. If individual laws have legal grounds, it will be possible to deal with everything from detecting speeding vehicles to error reading and imposition of administrative fines without human intervention through a “completely automated system.” Legislative study on dispositions using an artificial intelligence system is also expected to be expanded.

Korea had painful historical experiences, including the colonial era, war, and authoritarian era, and surmounted the difficulties. We have raised our national prestige and started to lead the world with a good system. Korea’s laws and systems have been greatly influenced by foreign laws. With the enactment of the law, however, we are ahead of many other countries that do not yet have substantive administrative laws. This “K-legislation” can be a good reference for other countries with similar administrative law systems when they make laws and develop their laws and systems.

The Ministry of Government Legislation has shared Korea’s laws and systems with overseas countries, while introducing the legislative cases of other major countries and organizations to the Korean people and businesses. As part of legislative exchange and cooperation, the law that is a significant achievement in the legislative history of Korea was translated into various languages such as English, Japanese, and Chinese and provided to various countries. President Moon Jae-in, who returned to Korea after the G7 summit held in June, announced that Korea is a “bridge nation” that connects advanced and developing countries. It is expected that sharing the translations would contribute to improving the administrative laws of each country and to facilitating international discussions for the development of administrative laws. I hope the law would become a “bridge” that connects the administrative laws of each country.