법제처 로고

1. Introduction In modern democratic states, a policy of the government appears to be institutionalized by laws. Legal system of Koreawiththewrittenlawconsistsoffivecategories:theconstitution, Acts (laws), Presidential Decree, Ordinance of the Prime Minister and Ordinance of Ministries, and Administrative Rules (Directives and Regulations etc.). Particularly, Korea’s legislative environment has enormous kinds of laws and frequent change of them. As of August 2010, Korean laws consists of 1,255 Acts, 1,703 Presidential Decrees, 71 Ordinances of the Prime Minister, and 1,411 ordinances of Ministries, which in total count 4,441l aws. Compare to the total number of laws was 3,013 in 1980, now it has been increased about 47%. Also, 1,400~1,900 laws are legislated or modified then become proclaimed annually. This means about 30% to 40% of the laws are being annually changed even by a bit. Within this dynamic legislative environment, Korean government has promptly disclosed legislative information with the computerization of legislative process. Moreover it put many efforts to systemize the whole process of the legislation, from making the first draft to the examination and proclamation, to be handled with information system. From now on, let’s review the steps of Legislative Process Informatization of the Korean Government and discuss on the future development. 2. Necessity for Legislative Process Informatization There has been argued about the necessity for legislative process informatization in the sectors below. 1) Demand for the improvement of Legislative Process As the society becomes complicated and diversified, the subjects to be regulated by law have been increased. Also with people’s increased consciousness of law and rights, the number of laws has risen radically and the scope of laws also has extended. In Korea, no tonly legislators but also the President can suggest bills to the Congress, and considerable amount of laws are being legislated as the President’s suggestion. This kind of legislation is processed with the below steps. Usually it takes long time with complicated procedures, at least six month or more than a year before the actual proclamation. As it can be seen in the chart above, the roles of many governmental institutions and the National Assembly were very complex in the governmental legislation process. The officers responsible for each process had to carry out without any consistent standard and only by their own way of working and document making. The officers in each department could use personal computer and word processor from the early 1990s. However, since each parts of the work are not linked together, time needed for legislation became longer and a quick response to the fast-changing society by the modification of the law system was difficult. Thus, many concerns on this inefficiency of the overall government system were raised. 2) Demand for the Improvement of People’s Access to the Law Information What is written in law should be well-know to anyone and easily accessible by people, however, law has been only for the limited number of professionals with law books for a long period. The law books were quite expensive and updated monthly, so it was difficult to contain every single change immediately. Also, other than Acts, many administrative regulations such as directives, decrees and examples which are actually used in each department’s real administrative works were difficult for general people to understand. Moreover, since the contents are frequently revised in Korea, there has been the need for on-line disclosure of laws as the informatization develops. With this informatization, it is easier to figure out the process and reasons of legislation, amendment, and abolition. Also more prompt updating and more information on the court rulings, administration adjudication rulings, and interpretation of laws can be available. 3) Need to complement the Lack of Hands-on Workers’ Professionalism Workers who are responsible for legislation tasks in central administrative institution or local government cannot stay in one department due to the circulation policy. Usually their positions are switched in every two or three years. Due to this situation, there are many difficulties for hands-on workers in each department who actually have to make the legal bill according to the traditional practices. There was a high possibility of making errors because each institution has to work without any professional legal knowledge when they make the bills, revisions, or rating tables for old and new provisions. Furthermore, great inefficiency occurred with no linkage between the procedures and the service for general public could not be standardized. 4) Demand for Transparency in Legislation Process Process of making law is not only writing some sentences for provisions but also functioning to settle the disputes between the persons concerned and integrate the society. Disclosure of the information from the process gives legitimacy to the contents and procedures of the legislation. Also, it guarantees the opportunity for people to participate in politics and secure the efficiency when the law is being implemented to take effect. In Korea, legislation notice has been performed for more participation since 1983, but it was based only on the official gazette. Legislation notice is supposed to be done by the institution which leads the law making or revision and it is supported by a small amount of advertisement of major law provisions through newspapers or internet by the Ministry of Government Legislation. Even if a person submits opinion on the issues being noticed, he or she can hardly know how the opinion was dealt. Also, it is difficult to figure out the difference between the first draft and the final version. Many voices insisted that there should be more transparency with systemic management and preservation of information from the legislation procedures. 3. Current Status of Major Informatization in Legislation Sectors 1) Establishment and Supply for the Legal Information Data Base a) Making Data Base of the Current Legal Information (1992) From 1990s, the contents and number of laws has been increased enormously as the demand for the legislation increased with more variety of society and development of democratization in Korean Society. Due to these changes, the traditional written law books could not satisfy the general public’s growing demand for the legal information, so the need for legal information data base has been increased as time goes by. Thus the Ministry of Government Legislation made data base for the current laws which has about 50,000 pages of 52 books in 1992, working together with the Government Electronic Calculating Center since 1989. Through the administrative computer network, this was served for each administrative institutions and it can be seen as the first beginning of the legal informatization. From 1992 to 1998, Korea Legislation Research Institute provided current laws with some fees through private on-line service companies such as High-tel or Chonllian (online service provides similar to AmericanOnline or CompuServe) . On June 1998, the Synthesized Legal Information Center (綜合法令情報Center, www.klaw.go.kr) was established to provide current legal information by free to general public. b) Making Data Base of the Historical Laws and Introducing the Web Service of the Synthesized Legal Information System (2000) In the past, when there is a need to find out a specific law’s contents in a certain period such as the income tax law in January 1990, only ‘Historical Law Books’ was the source which is written down as a book. This book contains legal amendments in the past, however, it was difficult to compare by the periods. Thus, it was necessary to undertake informatization of “Historical Legal Information” to make it easier to study the laws in the past. As the need grows, ‘Undertakings for Korean Historical Law Data Base’ was started for three times from 1999 to 2000. The undertaking made the whole data base on 6,000 enacted, revised and abolished laws since 1948, 18,000 Ordinances of President, 30,000 Ordinances of Prime Minister and Ministers and provided on-line service from 2000. Using this service, it is easier to search the law in a specific period, so not only the law professionals but also users of legal data base made many complements on this service. c) Making and Providing Data Base of Modern Laws, Attached Forms, and Others Legal data before the foundation of Korean government from 1894 to 1948 consists of the old Korean Empire laws, Laws during Japanese Colonial Periods, and laws made by the U.S. military governments. The need to establish data base through informatization increased a lot since many of these materials are written in complicated Chinese or Japanese. Thus the Ministry of Government Legislation collected the original materials from 2004 to 2005 and translated into Korean, connecting Korean Historical laws Data Base. Also, many laws had attached forms, and these forms became provided by a word processor format for “Hangul” which many people use to print out. d) Making Data Base for Ordinances, Published Rulings, Court Rulings and Interpretation on Legal Provisions of Each Administrative Institution In 2008, the Synthesized Legal Information included Supreme Court Rulings, Rulings of the Constitutional Court, and Interpretation on Legal Provisions data bases. In 2009, 1) information on the administrative regulations such as ordinances and published rulings from each administrative institution, 2) Treaties, 3) Court Rulings, 4) Rulings of the Constitutional Court, 5) Interpretation on legal provisions by the Ministry of Government Legislation, were included. Then the original current laws and historical laws data base were classified by the provisions and mutually linked to be updated in quantity and quality. This is now called with a new name ‘National Legal Information Data Base’ showing all the legal information utilized in Korea. Title PeriodsClassificationCost(billion won)The 1st Undertaking for Korean Historical Law Data Base1998.11.30-1999.5.30Laws : 6,0001.15 The 2nd Undertaking for Korean Historical Law Data Base1999.5.1-1999.11.30Presidential Decree: 18,0001.97The 3rd Undertaking for Korean Historical Law Data Base2000.3.2-2000.10.31Ordinance of Prime Minister and Ministers: 30,0003.9Subtotal 54,0007.02The 1st Undertaking for Korean Modern Law Data Base2004.4.14-2004.11.30Ordinance of Military Government: 790 Ordinance of Government General: 1,6801.32The 2nd Undertaking for Korean Modern Law Data Base2005.3.22-2005.11.30Ordinance of Government General: 1,5560.67Subtotal 4,0261.99Total 58,0269.02 2) Establishment and Utilization of the National Legislation Support System In 2005, the Administration Ministry selected six projects to improve the service for people and efficiency of works through informatization of processing between many departments. Among these, undertaking for making ‘the Government Legislation Information System’ was selected. The Ministry of Government Legislation could receive the budget from the Electronic Government of the Administration Ministry and proceeded informatization for the whole legislation. Then in 2006, Business Process Reengineering (BPR) was done for the all procedures from the planning to the proclamation. On this base, Information Strategic Planning (ISP) was established sine 2006 until November 2009 to make the Government Legislation Integrated System by four steps. a) The 1st Undertaking for Establishing the Government Legislation Integrated System 政府立法統合System (‘06.12 ~ ’07.06) For the first undertaking, ‘’ The Legislation Support System’ was for efficient acceptance and review of bills, management after reviewing, legislative review The system's Bill Editor provides extensive support in terms of format and systems, using an Auto-Generator function to support the efficient reviewing of the bill. By providing an information management system that covers legislative activities such as the overall management of regulations, the system manages electronic transfers and records the Government's overall legislative processes. Also, ‘Legislation system for the Central Administrative Institution’ was established for each administrative department. Using this system, the bill can go through the procedures which are computerized and the result is to be evaluated by the Legislation Office linked to the ‘Legislation Support system’. Also, once the reviews are completed, the reviewer at the Ministry of Government Legislation composes a Review Report using a Review Report Editor, and the review is completed after acquiring approval from authorized personnel. After acquiring the approval of the president, the bill is submitted to the National Assembly using the National Assembly's e-Bill System. Then the bill is evaluated by the Ministry of Government Legislation and transmitted again to the National Assembly after the Cabinet meeting all by the computerized procedures. b) The 2nd Undertaking for Establishing the Government Legislation Integrated System (‘07.10 ~ ’08.04) In the second undertaking, ‘the Legislation system’ was expanded to be used in all departments and the hands-on workers were educated. Then ‘the National Legal Information Data Base’ was made to broaden the legal service provided to each administrative institution and general public. Also, the work procedures were improved to promptly be updated with amendments or enactments, expanding the quantity and the quality of the legal information service. c) The 3rd Undertaking for Establishing the Government Legislation Integrated System (‘08.6 ~ ’08.12) In the third undertaking, current states of the legislation became able to be detected and the revision and abolition of the inconvenient laws were to be systemically managed through the ‘legislation proceeding portal’. Also, even though it is not a ‘law’, some important standards for the administrative institutions such as administrative regulations were being as data bases. The system to look through the contents of these regulations and the bills was included in the legislation support system. d) The 4th Undertaking for Establishing the Government Legislation Integrated System (‘09.3 ~ ’09.11) In the fourth undertaking, the Ministry of Government Legislation provided all the legal knowledge, educational materials to each administrative institutions and general public to be utilized through the ‘Legislation Education Portal’. Then ‘Autonomous Legislation Support system’ for the local autonomous bodies’ hands-on workers and ‘the National Legislation Support system (國家立法支援system) ; to support the whole legislation procedures were completed. StepsTitle of UndertakingGoalPeriodsBudget Main ContentsBPR/ISP EstablishmentThe Government Legislation Integrated System BPR/ISP UndertakingMaking Model for process improvement and Planning System Establishment‘06.6 ~ ’06.110.69 billion wonAnalysis on the current status of the works for Establishing the Government Legislation Integrated System, Plans to improve the process and organizing law and system, Making efficient legislation process through informatizationStep 1The 1stUndertakingfor Establishing the GovernmentLegislation Integrated SystemEstablishing the Government Legislation Integrated System‘06.12~ ’07.63.6 billion won The bill editor, Legislation systems to support legislation were developed for Evaluation of the Ministry of Government Legislation and the agendas for the Cabinet meeting, National Assembly became able to be transmitted through electronic method.Step 2The 2nd Undertakingfor Establishing the GovernmentLegislation Integrated SystemPlanning System Expansion ‘07.11~ ’08.42.2 billion won Computerization of the legislation through legislation system of all central departments. Synthesized Legal Information Infra was updated. System was established to provide legal information based on demands. Prompt and accurate legal information support program was developedStep 3The 3rd Undertakingfor Establishing the GovernmentLegislation Integrated SystemSynthesize the Government Legislation Integrated System and making Legislation Information‘08.6 ~ ’08.122.5 billion won Current status of legislation process and modification on the inconvenient laws information being provide through the portal. Review on legislation and administrative rules for Government and National Assembly linkage systemStep 4The 4th Undertakingfor Establishing the GovernmentLegislation Integrated SystemStrengthening Service Utilization and Upgrading Management System ‘09.3 ~ ’09.111 billion wonNational Legislation Support center establishment for legislation works. Autonomous Law Editor was spread out. Open standard for legislation was established. On-line legislation education system was established. 4. The Government Legislation Integrated Information System 1) Structure of the Information System Now, the Ministry of Government Legislation is operating The National Legislation Support System (formerly it was called the Government Legislation Integrated Information before 2010). It is a government-wide legislation management system that handles every part of the legislation process, from composition of bills to final declaration, in an electronic manner to improve the efficiency of the legislative process and to improve the quality of civil services for the people. ○ The Composition of the Government Legislation Integrated Information System The National Legislation Support System (operated in the website of the National Legislation Support Center) consists of four main systems: 1) the Law Making System, which supports the drafting of bills and legislative processes by the Central Government 2) the Legislation Support System, which supports the reviewing of bills and submissions to vice ministerial meetings, Cabinet meetings and national assembly meetings 3) Legislation status Information portal, which provides information about every part of the legislative process, such as the status of bills, declaration notices, and the status of revisions to laws that cause inconvenience to the people 4) the National Legal Education portal, which integrates and serves information about declared statutes and related examples to educate legislative hands-on workers and general people 5) the Local Autonomous Legislation Support Editor which supports the legislation of the local autonomous bodies. 2) Law Making System (www.eglaw.go.kr) The Law Making System is used by civil servants in each government organization when drafting a bill. The system provides the framework for automating, standardizing and electronically tracking the drafting of bills, and it records and manages information about the statute, from drafting of bills and negotiations between government bodies, to declaration notices and the reviewing of regulations. From July 16 2008, Legislative worker of the central administrative institutions now access to the Law Making System to compose the legislative bill by the Bill Editor, and then attach related documents to the system to ask for the examination. 3) Legislation Support System (ss.moleg.go.kr) The Legislation Support System is used by the Ministry of Government Legislation when reviewing the bills that have been drafted by each government body using the Law Making System after reviews have been requested. The system's Bill Editor provides extensive support in terms of format and systems, using an Auto-Generator function to support the efficient reviewing of the bill. From July 16 2007, the Ministry of Government Legislation has used the system to make the bill and give approval. After a bill has been approved by the Ministry of Government Legislation, it is transmitted to the On-Nara Government Affair Management System in the Vice ministerial meetings and Cabinet meetings Menu. After acquiring the approval of the president, the bill is submitted to the National Assembly using the National Assembly's e-Bill System. Yet, the passed bill is not being transmitted directly to the government with electronic transmission. 4) Legislation status Information portal (inglaw.moleg.go.kr/ginglaw.moleg.go.kr) The Legislation status Information portal gathers the information from the legislation process including the Legislation System (where bills are composed by each department), the Legislation Support System (Review of bills, Vice ministerial meetings, National Assembly Conference, Submission to the National Assembly and Approval by the National Assembly, etc.), and the National Legal Information Center (Declaration). By doing so, the Legislation status Information portal provides real-time tracking and history of the legislation process, from drafting of the bill to the final declaration. It also standardizes the Legislation Notice Services, which had been provided differently by the government body-in-charge, and also provides status reports in revision and abolishment of statutes that cause inconvenience for the people. 5) the National Legal Education portal (edu.klaw.go.kr) The National Legal Education portal is the educational system to provide information on various law educations by the Ministry of Government Legislation and on-line education contents. Also it strengthens the professionalism of hands-on workers by learning the contents of ‘Legislation Bill Evaluation Criteria’. 6) The Local Autonomous Legislation Support Editor The Local Autonomous Legislation Support Editor is developed and disseminated to support local autonomous bodies which lack enough professional legislators. It supports the workers of the bodies when they compose directives or regulations within the standard of ‘Legislation Bill Evaluation Criteria’. It can be utilized by not only local assembly or institutions of the local government but also other public institutions, and corporations to edit law-like documents. Now it is not linked with independent date base, but it will be linked with the local autonomous bodies’ law information date base in the future. 5. Current Status of National Legal Information Center Operation The National Legal Information Center is the professional website to provide information about laws and administrative regulations (such as related regulations in government bodies and examples), Supreme Court rulings, administrative ruling case examples, and date base of the analysis of laws. Legal information is being updated in real time. When the law is posted in the official gazette, legal data based is updated within a few hours and provide newest legal information. Moreover, there is a tool to search not only law and related information but also attached form and three-tier comparison of law suitable for Korean legal structure. Link service between each law is provided and the latest news on law and court rulings, the contents of newly announced law, and various statistics are provided, too. This chart shows the current list of law and cases information provided by the National Legal Information Center in October 2010. TypeClassificationNumber of casesCurrent LawAmendments and contents of laws4,160Attached Forms25,290Historical LawHistorical Law (After the formation of the government ~ present)81,629Modern Law (24% completed) (the Kroean Empire law ~ before the formation of the government)4,893Administrative RegulationsEstablished rules and instructions14,187Autonomous LawsCity, Provinces, Borough 122,92TreatiesTreaties such as Convention and Agreement1,617PrecedentsSupreme Court Rulings61,156Violation of the ConstitutionConstitutional Court Rulings19,282InterpretationInterpretation of Law by the Ministry of Government Legislation17,978Rulings of Administration adjudicationThe Committee of Administration adjudication under Prime Minister / Cases of Administration adjudication10,267Legal TermsLegal Definition Terms, Legal Terms Dictionary, Legal Terms Korean-English Dictionary, Legal Terms Purification Dictionary4,704Attached FormsHistory of Legislations, Administrative Regulations, Autonomous Regulations, etc.504,671Total 872,757 Now the data base of the National Legal Information Center is provided to 120 institutions such as the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, other central administrative departments and competent authorities, broadening various legal information services. It counts 100,000 people a day accessing to the website. Besides, the Ministry of Government Legislation provides the service showing national legal information through smart phones (such as i-phone, Android phone, window mobile phone) from 2010. 6. Evaluation and Future Plans The National Legislation Support System project created the base for standardized, electronic legislation processes by changing the procedures from the department-centered to the process-centered. With this, the Ministry of Government Legislation can manage the whole process of the government legislation with transparency by disclosing of the legislative process to citizens and the providing of easy-to-understand legal information for all. Also it integrated information on law, precedents, and administrative regulations, and eventually contributes to the national legislation ability at last. Moreover, the National Legal Information center can enable more convenient and fast research on various laws and legal information related to the daily life of people, which will contribute to the legal order and law-abiding spirit. It also can solve the problem of budget waste and inconveniency for people. Since each information system in national legislation and law are closely related to many departments including the linkage between the National Assembly, the Office of Prime Minister, the Ministry of Administration, local autonomous bodies, the system should have the structure for better mutual cooperation. From now on, more national support for the legislation not only by the central administrative institutions but also by local autonomous bodies and other institutions will be continued through the development of necessary IT technologies.