– ACRC announces three major tasks for 2025 under the vision of “People with Better Life, Korea to Leap Forward”with a priority on stabilizing livelihoods and protecting marginalized groups

(14, January. 2025, ACRC)

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Right Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Ryu Chul Whan) announced three major tasks to focus on under its 2025 vision “People with Better Life, Korea to Leap Forward.”

Given the increasing concerns about added grievances due to the uncertainties both within and outside of Korea, ACRC has made stabilizing livelihoods and protecting marginalized groups as top priority.

Also, ACRC will engage with people in multiple ways by utilizing digital technology and improve platform including Online Administrative Appeals System in more easy and convenient way for people’s rights and interests.

Moreover, ACRC announced to consolidate anti-corruption system by conducting rigorous checks and elevating effectiveness of code of conduct for fairness and integrity, while spreading a culture of integrity throughout society.

1. Stabilize People’s Life, Focusing on Protecting Marginalized Groups and People’s Livelihood

ACRC will prioritize the proactive resolution of issues faced by vulnerable social groups such as self-reliant young people, people living in slums and people affected by Hansen’s disease through on-site visit and circuit counseling. As a hub for the projects, ACRC will form a “joint social consultation group” for more systematic and sustainable support, improving both quantity and quality of the programs.

At the same time, the committee will operate “On-site Business Grievances Meeting” for small business owners and micro enterprises as well as the “On-site Outreach Service,” which visits marginalized areas and communities over 100 times a year for listening to the difficulties of people’s livelihoods and addressing grievances in a fast manner.

Also, investigation will also focus on topics including fast transfer of illegal parking, signs of eco-friendly vehicle charging places, living environment of junior military officials to figure out root causes of inconveniences and improve irrational system and practices, while proactively find long-awaited collective complaints which cause grievances of local residents and social disagreements for reasonable mediation and resolution.

※ ACRC addressed 716 cases of collective complaints from May 2022 to Dec 2024, resolving grievances of about 267 thousand people

2. Society of fairness and integrity where people can feel the difference

ACRC conducts thorough checks to eradicate corruption at local and on-site areas which are closely connected to the daily lives of people. The commission will focus on preventing financial leakage due to the excessive budget spending of public institutions or illegal receipt of subsidy and recommend recovery to contribute to the national budget.

Old-fashioned practices in public society including unofficial hospitality for executives, power trip in the office, non-planned use of budget will also be the target of thorough inspection.

The three-year-old Conflict of Interest Prevention Act (2025.05.19) to be fully operate among the public officials as an anti-corruption mechanism, ACRC will repair the act in more reasonable way, add virtual assets to the restricted transactions when using duty-related information to raise and elevate effectiveness of anti-corruption related law.

To disseminate integrity with fairness and common sense in the overall society, ACRC will also investigate hiring process of sports-related organizations as they have high incidence of recruitment-related corruption and provide consulting on recruitment regulations.

* Government project 91. Guarantee fair opportunity for the young generation to take a leap forward

ACRC will host ACTWG (Anti-Corruption and Transparency Experts Working Group) in upcoming February and July for 21 members of Asia-Pacific region. APEC High Level Dialogue of Anti-Corruption Cooperation in July will have high-level officials of anti-corruption agencies of the U.S., Australia, Malaysia, anti-corruption related international organizations such as OECD and UNODC to discuss latest international anti-corruption issues as well as joint effort and solidarity of Asia-Pacific. Korea’s status and external credibility can be further enhanced through the successful meeting.

At the same time, ACRC will visit CPI (Corruption Perception Index) evaluating institutions by June and present anti-corruption efforts and achievements of Korea to improve international awareness of transparency and credibility of Korea to contribute better CPI.

ACRC also works for the improvement of current laws* to guarantee reporters with equal protection and support by standardizing different levels of protection and support.

* Act on Prevention of Corruption and the Establishment and Management of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, Public Whistleblower Protection Act, Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, Act on Prohibition of False Claims for Public Funds and Recovery of Illicit Profits, Act on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest Related to Duties of Public Servants (5 Acts)

Use recommendation system for proactive prevention of disadvantageous action to thoroughly protect the reporter, and ACRC will strictly conduct regular checks, request disciplinary action towards violator, and accuse investigation agency. The committee will also seek for amicable and voluntary resolution by recommending reconciliation between petitioner who asked for the action of protection and the requested person (or institution).

3. Expand digital platform to strengthen communication and advocacy

Government call center* launched in last Dec. 27 provides fast, accurate service based on shared-data and AI advisor**.

* Separated call center of 17 institutions including Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs are integrated by using cloud and AI technology.

** Analyzes voices of petitioner and counselor to provide appropriate response and information.

“e-People” will increase the number of the institutions under its umbrella (50 added in 2025, 1,262 in total) for convenient petition system, and introduce Any-ID (comprehensive ID system) for convenience and stability so that there is no need to log-in whenever people visits different web pages of the public institutions.

For issues that are high profile or need active response, ACRC will activate “People’s Idea Box” to collect opinion and conduct “Policy Idea Contest.”

ACRC will also work for amending the law for administrative appeal for better access and effectiveness of the appeal system. Asking for court-appointed attorney will be available before the administrative appeal and CAAC (Central Administrative Appeals Commission) will be able to set deliberation date in virtue of office so that delayed response of the appellee will not cause any delay* of the case, while establishing strong ground to handle malicious complaint.

* The number of cases that appellee delivered the response after the legal period (10 days) in 2022-2024: 13,268 cases

Under the government project “establish one-stop administrative appeal system” 95 on-line Administrative Appeals Systems* that were separately managed will be integrated as of June for convenient administrative appeal.

* Central Administrative Appeals Commission, Central Land Tribunal, Appeals Commission, Appeal Commission for Educators, National Tax Examination Committee, Tax Tribunal and others

Last but not least, issue handling and system improvement will be strengthened by analyzing complaints big data. ACRC analyzes people’s opinions in multiple ways by investigating big data of civil complaints from public institutions to figure out and forecast potential issues and guide proactive response of administrative institutions. Analysis and forecast based on civil complaints will be expanded to daily safety issues including new kind of crimes such as digital sexual abuse to strengthen people’s safety.

Big data on complaints will be utilized to come up with the measures to (low birth rate) improve national scholarship system for multi-child families (safety) crack down drug drive with strong punishment (polarization) protect single parent family(imbalanced development) improve ways for protecting subcontract and SMEs.

Chairperson Ryu Chul Whan of ACRC said “as social, economic difficulties of people can be worsened due to the uncertainties in and outside of the country, we will communicate with people on-site and proactively address hardships.”

He added “structural elements that causes people’s suffering will be resolved by fundamentally improving the policies, handling corruption and unfairness in more strict ways for Korea to be a country with integrity that matches with our people’s dignity.”