100 Days Since Seoul City's Regulatory Deregulation Turnaround... Ombudsman Seeks 'Shadow Regulations'

Ombudsman Committee Collaborates with Regulation Abolition Review Board
Over 2,000 Grievance Cases Reviewed to Identify Regulations

The Seoul Metropolitan Government is teaming up with the Citizens' Audit Ombudsman Committee to identify shadow regulations. Marking the halfway point of the '100-Day Regulation Abolition Project' launched earlier this year, the focus is now shifting more toward the voices of citizens.

According to Seoul City on the 21st, the Citizens' Audit Ombudsman Committee held a joint meeting with the Regulation Abolition Expert Review Board the day before to discuss measures to improve the effectiveness of identifying regulation abolition agendas.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon is attending and speaking at the Investment and Affiliated Institutions Regulation Abolition Report Meeting held at the Seoul City Hall in Jung-gu, Seoul on the 13th. 2025.2.13 Photo by Jo Yong-jun

In line with Mayor Oh Se-hoon's policy stance that "if we do not change, we perish," Seoul has been conducting the '100-Day Regulation Abolition Project' since the 3rd of last month. This day marks the midpoint of the 100-day project, during which Seoul has improved over 30 regulations. Starting with the first case, "Abolition and relaxation of the non-residential facility ratio in commercial and quasi-residential areas," the project has focused on highly effective regulation abolitions, such as removing age restrictions on childcare fee support for foreign children.

For the remaining 50 days, the plan is to focus more on the voices of citizens and experts. Seoul City’s decision to discuss regulation abolition agendas together with the Ombudsman, composed of seven members including lawyers, architects, and heads of civic organizations, aligns with this approach. The Ombudsman conducts activities such as investigating and handling grievance complaints demanding resolution of illegal or unfair administrative dispositions, conducting audits requested by citizens or residents who require improvement of unreasonable systems and regulations, and monitoring and evaluating public projects above a certain scale.

The Ombudsman plans to thoroughly review 2,602 cases, including grievance complaints handled over three years since 2022, citizen/resident/official audits, and public project monitoring and evaluation activities, along with the review board launched in January this year, to discover improvement ideas. Additionally, 1,370 grievance complaints that have completed investigation and handling will be re-examined with a focus on regulation abolition through a legal advisory group.

By involving experts from various fields to review regulation abolition agendas from multiple perspectives, the Citizens' Audit Ombudsman Committee will hold regular weekly meetings to deliberate and decide on agendas to be improved. Ju Yong-hak, Chairperson of the Seoul Citizens' Audit Ombudsman Committee, stated, "Through this collaboration, we will contribute to intensively identifying unreasonable regulation abolition agendas that citizens can directly feel in various areas such as the economy and livelihood."

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