제2기 지방분권개혁 및 광역행정체제하에서의 특별지방행정기관의 정비에 관한 행정법적 고찰

[1] The successive governments have put a lot of effort for the maintenance of special local administrative agencies. The participatory government carried out maintenance work through the Presidential Committee on Government Renovation and Decentralization but did not make substantial achievements and even maintenance plans prepared in a difficult way exist only as documents. The present government adopted the maintenance of special local administrative agencies as a key national project and selected 8 areas under consideration for transfer. The 8 areas are national road·river, labor, veterans affairs, Forestry, Food and Drug,medium and small-sized enterprises, Maritime and Port, environment and targeted total 195 agencies except for areas requiring expertise of policy implementation and national unity such as tax affairs·public peace·work-site operation agency etc. At present, discussions are underway around the 3rd working committee of Decentralization advancement committee but satisfactory results are not shown yet. [2] If the special local administrative agency system is misused·misapplied, the following problems will occur. First, the excessive installation of special local administrative agencies is contrary to our legal system based on Subsidiarity Principle (Local Autonomy Law Article 102). It is also contrary to Article 18 of ‘General rules on Organization and Fixed Number of Administrative Agency’ stipulating that special local administrative agencies should be installed only when it is inappropriate to delegate the work to local governments such asprofessionalism·particularity of the work etc. or the work of central administrative agencies needs to be performed by sharing locally. Second, unnecessary administrative·financial waste is caused due to the duplication of office work of special local administrative agencies and office work function of local governments. Third, in many cases, office work of special local administrative agencies and office work of local governments are performed redundantly, causing troubles in the general administration of local governments. Fourth, the quality of administrative services of local governments may be degraded and wide administration may face difficulties etc. [3] The maintenance measures of special local administrative agencies can be considered from two perspectives. The first is the maintenance measure from the legal and institutional perspective. First, under the principle that administrative organization shall be prescribed by law,the law should stipulate that special local administrative agencies should be established by law not by Presidential Decree and ideas on how to reorganize special local administrative agencies should be established and enacted. Also, by previously reviewing legal issues relating to the guarantee of status of government officials to be caused in maintenance procedures, the detailed maintenance plan must be prepared in advance for those who are transferred to the positions in the provincial areas such as the granting of incentives etc. and it should be discussed comprehensively in line with office work reform of local governments and local administration system reorganization. Next is the maintenance plan from the policy perspective. First, the basic direction of maintenance of special local administrative agencies should be set. And the maintenance issue of special local administrative agencies should be addressed in connection with government innovation and next, a policy decision about whether the primary delegation agencies of the work performed by special local administrative agencies will be metropolitan local governments or basic local governments should be made and then according to the principle of selection and concentration based on this, the priority of special local administrative agency maintenance target should be determined. Finally, the policy review on the use plan etc. of manpower and budget caused by reorganization of special local administrative agencies will be also required. [4] In maintaining special local administrative agencies, it is true that it is not easy to solve because complicated and various problems such as administration organization act issues, connection with local administration system reorganization and decentralization etc. are still in existence. Since we do not have the decentralized constitution like France does, it is thought that the system maintenance through ‘administrative decentralization’ does not match with our administrative culture. In our case, maintenance of special local administrative agencies is the issue more directly related to office work transfer and expansion of autonomy of local governments so reorganizing organization gradually while performing active office work allocation is thought to be a more realistic measure.