Study Tour in South Korea: Ombudsman System

It was a good study tour to Republic of Korea. I had a very nice trip to Seoul in Korea for study tour on the ombudsman system. The study tour has been organized from 26 to 31 July 2009 to study on the ombudsman system in Korea where the system has been set up since 1994 with a good reputation. The participants are coming from different government institutions which are a secretary of state of the Office of the Council of Minister, a secretary of state of the Ministry of Interior, a permanent member of the Anti-Corruption Unit, a deputy chairman of the Cambodian human rights committee, a secretary general of the Council for Legal and Judicial Reform, two secretaries General of the Council for Legal and Judicial Reform, director general of administration of the ministry of justice, GTZ consultant and I. The study tour got a lot of information and experiences from the Koran government system, especially the ombudsman system which has been established since 1994.

Actually the delegation has been visited many place of the Korean government institutions, including the Korean civil society organizations. The government institution where the delegation has been visited are Korean national human rights commission, anti-corruption and civil rights commission, Seoul's audit ombudsman, and ministry of public administration and security. The study tour provided a lot of lesson learned which are:

• Most of the similar government institutions has been integrated together from 3 or 4 institutions into one institution in order to reduce the expense of the government
  


• They has used high tech in improving the public services delivery with faster and easier to access by internet
  


• the coordination between each government institutions is good and effective
  


• the information of each government institution is well prepared in both Korean and English
  


• each government officer has a specialized skill in their working field
  


• all institution focuses very much on the well and closed public services delivery to the citizens
  


• effective mechanism to combat against corruption from the local to national level (Seoul's Audit Ombudsman and Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission…)
  


• strong civil society organization to watch and monitor the performance of the government