Eradicating Malicious Complaints and Violent Acts: Anti-Corruption and Public Sector Officials Convene

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission Listens to Various Civil Complaints and Agency Response Cases... Seeking Institutional Improvement Measures

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (Chairman Yoo Cheol-hwan) held a "Public Sector Malicious Civil Complaint Cases and Response Measures Meeting" on the 12th at the Ulsan Workers' Welfare Corporation Smart Room.

Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service Headquarters.

At this meeting, Vice Chairman Kim Tae-gyu met directly with civil complaint officers working in various job fields to hear about the difficulties they face in handling complaints.

Verbal abuse and physical assault against complaint officers, demands for disciplinary action, civil and criminal lawsuits, as well as mass complaints or information disclosure requests aimed at obstructing work, cause not only simple fatigue but also depression and anxiety disorders among complaint officers. In some cases, these have led to extreme choices.

From 2018 to June 2023, there have been 100 cases of extreme choices (suicides) among public elementary, middle, and high school teachers, and from 2019 to June 2023, 1,131 public officials have filed claims for work-related injuries due to mental illness.

Such acts go beyond the personal suffering of complaint officers and lead to a waste of administrative resources in the public sector, infringing on the legitimate rights of ordinary citizens to receive public services.

Accordingly, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission plans to listen to various complaints and institutional response cases occurring in multiple job fields such as local governments, fire departments, education offices, police agencies, Workers' Welfare Corporation, and Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency, and will continue to collect malicious complaint cases in each field to prepare future institutional improvement measures.

Vice Chairman Kim Tae-gyu of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission stated, "For quality public services to be provided to the public, it is urgent to protect complaint officers from malicious complaints," adding, "We will promote institutional improvements based on the complaint field to ensure that legitimate complaints from ordinary citizens are not misunderstood as malicious complaints."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.