Anti-Corruption Commission Recommends Improvements to Corruption-Inducing Factors... Most Concerns Over 'Discretionary Abuse'

Implementation of Corruption Impact Assessment for Enacted and Revised Laws

Last year, a corruption impact assessment was conducted on 1,621 revised and newly enacted laws of central administrative agencies, and the most frequent improvement recommendation, accounting for 38.0%, was to prevent abuse of discretion.

Jung Seung-yoon, Vice Chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission. [Photo by Yonhap News]

On the 30th, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission announced that after reviewing whether citizens' rights were infringed, whether administrative agencies exercised excessive discretion, and whether unnecessary regulations existed, it identified 158 corruption-inducing factors in 85 laws and recommended improvements to the relevant ministries.

Among the 158 improvement recommendations, the most common were 60 cases (38.0%) where the specificity and objectivity of discretionary provisions were insufficient, raising concerns about abuse of discretion by administrative agencies. This was followed by 36 cases (22.8%) of regulations with low administrative predictability, and 21 cases (13.3%) of regulations with potential conflicts of interest. By sector, the industrial and development field accounted for 40 cases (47.1%), environment and health 12 cases (14.1%), and finance and economy 8 cases (9.4%).

Key improvement recommendations included clarifying the "criteria for reducing business suspension" related to violations in the operation and management of marine pollutant storage facilities to prevent potential abuse of discretion by administrative agencies. Additionally, the criteria for documents required when applying for paid leave for vaccination were specified as "documents that can verify employment status at the time of vaccination" to minimize confusion in subsidy applications. Furthermore, to enhance fairness in deliberations on major policies or regulatory improvements for mobility innovation, the Mobility Innovation Committee established "committee member disqualification criteria and recusal regulations" to prevent conflicts of interest.

Jeong Seung-yoon, Vice Chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, stated, "We have continuously made efforts to prevent corruption in the public sector through corruption impact assessments," and added, "This year, we plan to focus our evaluation capabilities more intensively to promptly and precisely inspect and diagnose laws that affect citizens' rights, obligations, and daily lives, ensuring that citizens' rights are not infringed by unfair or unreasonable regulations."

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