Verbal and Physical Abuse from Repeated Complaints... Public Officials Suffering from Unusual Civil Complaints

More than 8 out of 10 public officials responsible for handling civil complaints are suffering from unusual complaints, such as repeated submissions, verbal abuse, and physical assaults.

Yoo Cheolhwan, Chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, is speaking at the Government Seoul Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Yonhap News

On September 10, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission announced the results of the "2025 Unusual Complaints Status Survey," which was conducted from June to July among 1,097 public officials in charge of civil complaints at 393 public institutions.

According to the survey, 947 respondents, accounting for 86% of the total, said they had experienced unusual complaints in the past three years. By institution, the experience rate was highest at central administrative agencies (88.1%), followed by metropolitan governments (87.5%), basic local governments (87.0%), public institutions (87.0%), and offices of education (77.8%).

The number of people who experienced unusual complaints was 1,836 at basic local governments, 1,582 at public institutions, 1,012 at central administrative agencies, 447 at offices of education, and 336 at metropolitan governments, totaling 5,213.

Among these, habitual or repeated complaint submissions (778 people, 70.9%) were the most common, followed by verbal abuse (692 people, 63.1%), excessive requests for information disclosure (614 people, 56.0%), and unreasonable demands or protests (549 people, 50.0%).

As for the operational damages caused by unusual complaints, respondents cited delays in handling other work (87.9%) and personnel issues such as avoidance of civil complaint work (51.9%). As a result, 90.8% of public officials in charge of civil complaints said they experience mental stress, while 55% reported work overload, 23.6% cited additional burdens such as audits or lawsuits, and 12.9% suffered damages from violent acts.

Yoo Cheolhwan, Chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, stated, "Unusual complaints are causing harm to both individual public officials and institutions," and added, "The Commission will support frontline public officials so that they can effectively respond to unusual complaints."

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