Preventing Unnecessary Extensions in Petition Processing... Introduction of "Ex Officio Correction" for Petition Documents

Enforcement Decree of the Amended Public Petition Act Takes Effect on May 6

Specific Criteria Required for Extension of Petition Processing Periods

Subcommittees to Be Established Within the Petition Coordination Committee

From now on, if a civil servant wishes to extend the period for handling a public petition, they must specify the reason in detail. In addition, minor errors in petition applications, such as typos or omissions, can be corrected directly by civil servants with the applicant's consent.

Kim Minjae, Vice Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. 2026.3.9 Photo by Jo Yongjun

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety has revised the Enforcement Decree of the Act on the Handling of Public Petitions with these measures, which will take effect starting May 6.

The latest amendment focuses on preventing unnecessary extensions in the handling of public petitions and enhancing the responsiveness of administrative offices to alleviate inconveniences experienced by citizens in their daily lives.

First, the previously ambiguous grounds for extending the petition processing period have been clarified. Until now, the lack of specific criteria allowed for arbitrary extensions based on reasons such as "unavoidable circumstances."

The National Petition Portal receives and processes an average of 12 million petitions a year, of which approximately 1.6 million cases (13% of the total) are handled with an extension. Among these, "other" extension reasons, where the grounds for extension were unclear, accounted for about 390,000 cases (24% of extended cases, 3% of total cases).

Under the revision, the processing period may only be extended in unavoidable circumstances such as coordination with related agencies, verification of facts or on-site checks, or natural disasters. Extensions can no longer be granted simply due to heavy workloads or delays in assigning responsible staff.

A response system has also been established to ensure that the receipt and processing of petitions are not disrupted even in the event of an information system failure. Based on the government information system outage that occurred in September last year, a principle has been set to promptly inform citizens of the outage status and alternative submission methods through both civil service offices and online portals during emergencies.

It has also been stipulated that, if petition processing is delayed due to an information system failure, the period during which processing was impossible will not be counted towards the overall processing timeline, so that applicants are not disadvantaged.

Minor errors in petition documents can now be corrected directly by civil servants, and the expertise of the Petition Coordination Committee has been strengthened to enhance its ability to resolve conflicts.

The amendment introduces "ex officio correction," allowing administrative agencies to correct minor mistakes such as typos or omissions in petition applications directly, with the applicant's consent. This is expected to significantly reduce the inconvenience and costs that overseas Koreans have faced even for minor supplementary issues.

Subcommittees have been established within the Petition Coordination Committee, and the system has been reorganized to allow not only director-level civil servants but also external members to serve as committee chairs, thereby enhancing the committee’s neutrality and expertise.

Kim Minjae, Vice Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, stated, "We will prevent unnecessary extensions of processing periods and provide uninterrupted administrative convenience even in emergencies such as information system failures, in order to enhance the satisfaction felt by the public."

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