권한과 독립성에 따른 공공 옴부즈만의 효과성에 관한 연구 : 네덜란드, 영국, 남아공, 한국 옴부즈만을 중심으로

Abstract

All national ombudsmen in the world have a common interest and a common goal: improving the quality of democracy by providing an ongoing opportunity to have an effective independent review of the public complaints and concerns about government, and to remedy any injustice and unfairness. Due to the important role ombudsman plays in the contemporary democratic society, it is necessary to review and improve the effectiveness of this particular institute. However, each national ombudsman achieves different effectiveness. Different type of characteristics results different level of effectiveness in various types of organization. By reviewing the previous studies, two factors are found to affect the ombudsman effectiveness the most: the legal authority and independence level. Therefore, the aim of this study is find out how each national ombudsman shows different levels of effectiveness according to its legal authority and independence level. This paper is composed of five chapters. Chapter I introduces the purpose, methods and the extent of the study. Chapter II proposes the concepts, characteristics, functions and typology of the existing ombudsmen. Various definitions, characteristics and function of ombudsmen written on previous researches have been carefully reviewed and rearranged. Due to this variousness, classifying the concerning researches has been an unceasing controversial issue among scholars. This strand of debate on classification is introduced and discussed. Chapter III contains diverse arguments about ombudsman institutions. First, previous theories are divided and converged under the titles of jurisdiction, independence and legal authority. With the literature review in the field of ombudsman study, the reasons for the selection of the two variables, the authority and independence of the ombudsmen, are explained. Chapter IV analyzes the effectiveness of the National Ombudsman Institutions at the Netherlands, the U. K., the Republic of South Africa, and the Republic of Korea according to above variables, legal authority and independence. Chapter V gives conclusion to this study, also mentioning its limits. The major findings of this study are as follows. First, the study shows that the Ombudsman Institution with more legal authority and independence results better effectiveness. Accordingly, the Netherlands and the U. K. ombudsmen show relatively high effectiveness and high recommendation acceptance rate. On the contrary, low level of effectiveness is found in the Republic of South Africa and Korea. Secondly, all four of the national ombudsmen make efforts to deal with complaints more quickly and effectively. Also, easier accessibility to ombudsman system is considered as an important issue, ranking high among various problems decreasing the effectiveness of the institute. However, the complaint handling period of the U. K. Parliament Commissioner is analyzed to be excessively long compare to other countries. The reason is because of its low authority level. Lastly, Korean Ombudsman endeavors to raise its authority and independence to increase its effectiveness dealing with public complaints. To achieve this goal, Korean Ombudsman has to have its own initiative inquiry, permanent posts, and power to appoint inquiry officers.