From now on, if a public official wants to extend the period for handling a civil petition, the reason must be specified in detail. Also, minor mistakes such as typos or omissions in a petition application can be corrected directly by the public official with the petitioner's consent.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety will revise the Enforcement Decree of the Civil Petitions Treatment Act with these measures and enforce it starting on the 6th.
This amendment focuses on preventing unnecessary extensions in handling civil petitions and substantially resolving inconveniences felt by the public.
First, it specified the previously unclear reasons for extending the petition handling period. Until now, because the reasons for extending the handling period were not clearly stated, there were cases where it was extended at discretion based on "inevitable reasons."
An average of 12 million petitions are received and processed annually through the e-People system, and about 1.6 million of them (13% of the total) are handled with an extension. Among these, the "other" category with unclear grounds for extension accounted for about 390,000 cases (24% of extended cases, 3% of the total).
Through this revision, the period can be extended only in unavoidable situations such as coordination with related agencies, verification of facts or on-site checks, or natural disasters. Processing can no longer be postponed for reasons such as a heavy workload or delays in assigning a person in charge.
A response system was established to ensure there is no inconvenience in receiving and handling petitions even if an information system failure occurs. Based on the government information system failure that occurred in Sep. last year, a principle was set to promptly inform the public of the status of failures and alternative filing methods through petition offices and the website even in emergencies.
It was decided to stipulate that, even if petition handling is delayed due to an information system failure, the period during which processing was impossible will not be counted toward the handling period so that petitioners do not suffer disadvantages.
A "correction by authority" system was introduced to allow an administrative agency to directly correct minor mistakes such as typos or omissions in a petition application with the petitioner's consent. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) said, "It is expected to greatly help reduce the inconvenience of overseas Koreans who had to spend a lot of time and expense even on minor supplementary items."