악성민원의 실태와 그에 대한 대응

Abstract

In Korea, malicious complaints that go beyond common sense are continuously occurring. Considering that Korea is a leading country in terms of security, the serious level of malicious complaints deserves attention.
 Malicious complaints appear in many different forms. They are broadly classified into violent ones, meaningless and repetitive ones, sexual harassment ones, and those due to mental illness. Malicious civil complaints, regardless of their forms, have serious adverse effects on public officials physically and psychologically, lower national administrative power, and cause damage to the entire citizens by interfering with the handling of normal complaints. Many cases and statistics warn that criminal malignant complaints have reached a critical level.
 Traditionally, in Korea, acts of private persons who challenge public authority were not severely punished and tended to be handled mainly from a paternalistic perspective. The continuation of these judicial practices gradually lowered the authority of the dignity of public authorities, and the weakened public authorities again provoked malicious complaints, forming a vicious cycle.
 Korea is a relatively stable country, where the state or local governments are unable to wield power private persons and pressure them recklessly. Submission of the legitimate exercise of public authority to unreasonable malicious complaints by private persons should be discouraged. Since the existing sentencing standards were set too low for the seriousness of this crime, the first measure to be considered is severe punishment for the offense of vicious obstruction of performance of official duties. In addition, public officials, with the help of investigative agencies or legal experts, need to actively take legal action against the various criminal acts of complainants rather than enduring them unconditionally. The central government, local governments, and public institutions should break away from the practice of accepting only the views of malicious complainants with goodwill and take effective measures to protect public officials. Other measures that may be effective include physical blocking of access and entry of malicious complainants, and the installation of a barrier between malicious complainants and public officials at counseling windows.
 It is true that the public officials are servants of the people, but here the people refer to the whole elements that make up the nation, meaning that not all private persons reign over public officials. The mentality of malicious complainants that the public officials should do everything as civil want while recognizing them as subordinates or slaves is extremely regressive and childish. Establishing the right direction of Rule of Law through strict education for these maladaptive citizen is considered as one of the duties of the state and local governments.