Research Report
Ⅰ. Background and Purposes
□ The establishment of a transparent and open government has emerged as a task common in each country. Providing citizens with appropriate information, consulting with them and encouraging them to participate have been recognized as the key to good governance and a secure investment that can bring about better policy-making as well as a measure for enhancing openness.
○ The OECD declared that the establishment of legal, institutional, and strategic structures is directly related to the formation of better public policies for improving the access to information, consultation, and public participation in policy-making and is effective in promoting citizens' confidence.
○ Citizens are expected to participate in the legislative process more actively, since the structure of our society is predicted to be shifted towards a more pluralistic interest representation system and citizens' interest in and consciousness of legislation have been gradually raised.
□ The purposes of this study are to review cases of various countries that have implemented well-organized systems for public participation at preliminary stages of the legislative process and attaining a social consensus and to seek the applicability to the Republic of Korea by finding its implications.
Ⅱ. Major Contents
□ Advanced countries have provided various institutional schemes for collecting extensive opinions in the legislative process, which are not limited to the collection of information by administrative agencies, in order to collect opinions from ordinary citizens.
○ In the Swiss Confederation, the Consultation Procedure Act (Vernehmlassungsverfahrensgesetz) has been put into force since its enactment in 2005 as the process for collecting public opinions on legislative bills.
○ In the United Kingdom, the Code of Practice on Consultation has been put into force since its final enactment in November 2008 as the specific process for collecting public opinions and attaining a social consensus.
○ In the United States, the Negotiated Rulemaking Act has been put into force since its enactment in 1990 as a new process for resolving conflicts between interested parties through the mediation of interests at earlier stages of the formation of policies and easing the burden on administrative and judicial proceedings.
○ In Japan, the Administrative Procedures Act provides for the Public Comment System in order to secure the fairness throughout the administrative legislation process and to meet calls for public participation in administrative courses at the same time.
□ It is expected that the systems for collecting opinions, which are adopted in advanced countries as current systems for promoting public participation in the legislative process in various ways and attaining a social consensus, will provide the directivity meaningful for democratization and rationalization of legislation in the Republic of Korea.
Ⅲ. Expected Effects
□ It is necessary to consider providing institutional measures for collecting opinions from ordinary citizens on the government's legislation plans while requiring each ministry or agency to appoint officials exclusively responsible for the administration of public participation in the legislative process and affairs related to social consultation.
□ It is necessary to make it a rule to have experts and appropriate interested parties participate in the significant modification of Acts and subordinate statutes from the planning stage on, preparing a comprehensive report with opinions collected from them, and disclose such opinions to the public through web-sites and other media.
□ The need arises to enact an uniform law for providing for strong measures for collecting opinions, which shall bind government ministries and agencies effectively.