Citizens Propose and Deregulate: Seoul Launches "Citizen Regulatory Discovery Group"

Regulatory Innovation Begins with Citizens
Seoul City Launches "Citizen Regulatory Discovery Group"
Proposing Regulatory Improvement Ideas Through the Platform

The "Citizen Regulatory Discovery Group," which allows Seoul residents to directly identify and propose improvements to unreasonable regulations in their daily lives, was officially launched on September 18. As part of Seoul City's "Regulatory Innovation 365 Project," this initiative goes beyond the traditional administration-led approach by enabling citizens to directly suggest ideas for regulatory reform based on their everyday experiences.

The Citizen Regulatory Discovery Group is composed of individuals with diverse experience participating in city governance, including the Citizen Reporter Group, Seoul Youth Policy Network, and the Citizen Participatory Budget Committee. Participants range from teenagers to citizens in their 80s, and are expected to propose creative and practical ideas to address unreasonable regulations encountered in daily life. The group consists of a total of 171 members: 98 from the youth demographic, 42 from the middle-aged group, and 31 from the senior population.

Yonhap News Agency

At the launch ceremony held at City Hall on this day, more than 110 people attended, including city officials such as the Director of Regulatory Innovation Planning, the Chief Regulatory Officer, and members of the Citizen Regulatory Discovery Group. To help the group better understand regulations and effectively propose improvement ideas, Lee Ryeonju, Seoul City's Chief Regulatory Officer, delivered a special lecture on "What Is Regulatory Innovation?" Drawing on extensive experience overseeing regulatory innovation at the Office for Government Policy Coordination, Lee shared insights gained from a field perspective.

The lecture covered topics such as the concept of regulation and cases where regulations were improved through public suggestions, the regulatory innovation system in Korea, and the direction of regulatory innovation under past administrations. It provided basic knowledge about regulations and highlighted important considerations when identifying regulatory issues. Lee emphasized, "The starting point of all regulatory innovation is citizen proposals, and regulatory innovation cannot succeed without them," making it clear that the Citizen Regulatory Discovery Group is at the heart of Seoul City's regulatory reform efforts.

Seoul City plans to use the launch of the Citizen Regulatory Discovery Group as a springboard to actively pursue "regulatory innovation created together with citizens." The group will identify unreasonable regulations in daily life through 2026 and propose ideas via the "Imagination Seoul" platform. Suggestions from the group will be reviewed in consultation with relevant city departments; issues requiring amendments to national laws will be recommended to central government agencies, while matters related to city ordinances will lead to institutional improvements at the municipal level. Lee Changhyun, Seoul City's Director of Regulatory Innovation Planning, stated, "The launch of the Citizen Regulatory Discovery Group marks an important starting point for discovering and improving regulations from a citizen-centered perspective, beyond the administrative viewpoint," adding, "We will work together with citizens to achieve more transparent and innovative regulatory improvements going forward."

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