지방자치단체의 조직고권과 지방산림청의 정비방향

Public Authority of Local Government and Restructuring Direction for Local Forestry Office

The 21st century is transforming itself from the age of Centralization and Concentration into the age of Decentralization . The contemporary paradigm is shifted from the age of State, and Efficiency into the age of Balanced Development . Among many countries which try to meet the great changes of our times, especially Japan is driving forward the decentralization and decentralization policy to improve the national competitiveness. For the purpose of nation s balanced development, and to remedy the ill effect of centralization, discussions on decentralization steadily took place in Korea. The Participatory Government, which promised decentralization policy as its presidential campaign pledge, designated decentralization and nation s balanced development as its core tasks and pushing them forward To realize Decentralization and Nation s Balanced Development , the Participatory Government set up the Government Innovation Decentralization Committee under the immediate control of the government and announced the Participatory Government Decentralization Promotion Road Map . On the basis of this Road Map, the government enacted the so-called Three Special Laws for Decentralization , namely the Decentralization Special Law, Nation s Balanced Development Special Law and Special Measure Law For the Construction Of New Administrative Capital. However, in reality, the government is confronting political, social and legal conflicts and disputes in relation to the methods, the time and the applicable region to drive forward the decentralization policy and to bring an end to the centralized system. The Three Special Laws for Decentralization emphasize that the centralization of national powers, lack of local autonomy experience, lack of capacity for autonomy, insufficient citizen participation and poor local finance impedes the development into the decentralized developed nation and also that the centralized system in the age of compressional economic growth is not functioning efficiently anymore and hinders the national competitiveness instead The Three Laws have its origin in the recognition above and are intended to promote increased local vitality by citizen participation and reinforced national competitiveness through answering to the needs for decentralization. Decentralization Special law defines that the State should allow the affairs which are currently executed by special administrative organizations to be executed by local governments when it is considered more effective performed by the local government. When new special administrative organizations are to be set up, their functions should not be similar to, or not be duplicated with those of the local governments. (Article 10 Paragraph 1) Each administrative branch has organized committees to improve the system in the past. However, it has not been concluded and still incomplete. Thus, it is legally declared that the restructuring of local administrative organizations should be the core issue for the Participatory Government in promotion of decentralization and, at the same time, the government has shown its strong will to drive forward decentralization. The restructuring of special administrative organizations has the ultimate effect of reduction of human and material resources and also the effect of increase in administrative efficiency. The theme of today s seminar, [Public Authority of Local Government and Restructuring Direction for Local_ Forestry Office] has great significance in the future restructuring of the special local administrative organizations. In this regard, we are going to check if the national forest management function falls under national affairs and see if this function could be transferred to the local governments and show new direction for restructuring.