Basic Report

  
  
   The Korean Constitution recognizes the right to local autonomy of the decentralized publicentities laid down in Title VIII of the constitution. The constitution guarantees forming localcouncil (Article 118), stipulating the democratic and representative nature for local governmententities, together with assuring the right to implement local tasks by them within the scopeand remits of the legislation related. While the structural form of local government is in factguaranteed by the Local Autonomy Act which makes uniform the structure of all levels oflocal governments, a strong mayoral leadership prevails, in consequence, everywhere overweakened local council since the inception of decentralization system in Korea ; since 1991,local councils with the elected representatives have been established and first local electionfor the heads of local governments started in 1995.As legal competencies, local council members have authority to decide by making thebyelaws and regulations the matters of the following: enactment, revision and abolition ofMunicipal Ordinance of lower-level and upper-level of local governments; deliberation andconfirmation of a budget planned by mayors and governors; approval of settlement ofaccounts; imposition and collection of user fees, allotted charges, local tax and service chargesfrom local residents and service users; establishment and disposal of public facilities;acceptance and resolution of a petition and other matters under its competence pursuant togeneral laws and subordinate statutes.To exercise more and more complicated and expanded local government tasks abovementioned, and assume heavily burden-bearing responsibility for local citizens in financialcrisis context over the globe, every local councilmember absolutely needs to be secondedby a various supporting staff and experts in many fields of local affairs. But, Korean membersof the local council have not been considered enough supported, not only from local counciloffice and secretarial staff, but also by the executive departments when they exert theiractivities of deciding policies and overseeing daily management of the latters, even thoughthey were since 2006 allowed to receive member allowances as both an official remunerationand part of the reimbursement during their responsibilities exercising. It is in part becausethe executives (mayors and governors) of local governments in Korea have been largelyenjoying the personnel management and staff nomination powers and, consequently, that allthe administrative and legislative personnel working in the city council office are under theinfluence of the personnel management powers of the heads of local governments.Having said that, this study firstly examined the present Korean contexts on the localcouncil’s secretariat staff organization and personnel management, which revealed theone-sided control authority of the executives, mainly due to the unified system of the strongmayor-weak council power structure of all municipal and regional governments. For instance,every local council chairman whether or not in the upper level and lower level of localauthorities have never held since 1991 any nomination powers to the Chief Staff of localcouncil office and its secretarial assistants, in which a power pendulum is always heavilybiased toward the Mayor and that the basic principle of the “Checks and Balances” betweenthe executive and the legislative remained broken in Korean local government system. Localcouncilmembers for their activities should have encountered great difficulty without the helpfrom the local council’s secretariat staff whose typical duties include researching andresponding to inquires from residents, sometimes, on behalf of council members; draftingwritten communications involving strategy, policies and/or procedures on behalf of the former;and serving as the representative of the elected official regarding certain functions; generallyspeaking, they schedule and prepare the council agenda and process all files for councilconsideration during the on-and-off legal meeting sessions.Nevertheless, despite a variety of the amendments to the Local Autonomy Act proposedby the majority and opposition political, party and the abolishment of the non-paid electedcouncilmember system in 2006, local council chairs or ordinary members presently are notendowed to control the personnel management and nomination power of their own assistantsand legislative aides, compared to the heads of the executive who are wholly beneficiariesof the strong mayoral system in Korea.To change these dysfunctions and uniform, biased power structure in Korean localgovernment, this study reviewed, in third part, many developed countries systems, such asthe US, UK and France, that provide all local councilmembers for their official activitiesnaturally and logically with a great degree of administrative and legislative performant aids.In light of these good examples, the final chapter pointed out some advantages of introducinga new personnel classification exclusively reserved for the legislative and analytic aidesworking in the City Council Office or attached to individual local elected officials withinthe officialized scope of tasks exercising.As a first solution, we can think that a member of staff or aides may be engaged eitherby a single council member or jointly by two or more council members through a pool anda same party. Above all, these reform measures are being followed by creating “a newprofessional class applied to the City Council tasks and duties”. So, one of the solution thisstudy suggests is ; the requirements for a position as a legislative aide can vary accordingto the office and needs of the local legislator, but what is sure in this situation is that Municipaland Regional Council’s clerk profession is to be created as an individual staff class of theprofessional classification in local public servants for further enhancing the localcouncilmembers capabilities and contributing to fully support their official performances. Andincumbents in these positions have to be appointed, part-time or full-time, by the local councilmembers without the interference of the executives who are, always and in theory, underthe oversight and administrative scrutiny of the elected officials representing constitutionallythe constituents.Finally, the following measure will be another path to seeking the answer to the questionof how to enhance council members performance, that is: by providing the financial aidssuch as incidental and ancillary employment costs and temporary legislative aides and staffcover costs, a member is allowed to engage staff under a contract of employment (whetheron a full-time or part-time basis), under a contract for services or by virtue of an arrangementwith the executive’s budget availability, pursuant to the byelaws or governmental regulationswhich have to be stipulated prior to the execution of the regime beforementioned.For concluding, the best way of overcoming the problems raised in an unbalanced politicaland administrative situations between the Council and the Executive in local government isas follows: within appropriations for such purpose, the council shall have a whole authorityto manage staff management within the City Council and retain their own professional staff,in order to help them to review and analyze proposed budgets and departmental estimates,requests for new taxes or changes in taxes, budget modifications, capital borrowings andmayoral management reports. Such staff management power for the Council will help bringout the apparent and effectively tangible results in their analysis of proposed legislation andin review of the performance and management of city agencies, which are consideredmeasurable variables to the effectiveness of the elected officials.