지방정부 인권보호관 제도의 운영 성과와 개선 과제

Abstract

Since the introduction of the human rights system in local governments, more than half of all local governments have enacted basic human rights ordinances, and many local governments have implemented human rights remedy work based on the ordinances. Human rights remedy is becoming a major task of so-called human rights remedy organizations such as human rights teams, human rights centers, and human rights protection officers, and the form and performance of their operation vary by local governments. Among the human rights systems operated by local governments, the human rights protection officer system was introduced to quickly and efficiently relieve human rights violations in the region and spread to regional local governments as well as some basic local governments. Furthermore, each regional education office has enacted and operated student human rights ordinances centered on the protection of student human rights, and recently, the emphasis on student human rights has conflicted with the issue of protecting teachers’ rights, sparking considerable controversy. According to the specific operation status of the human rights protection officer system in local governments, human rights remedy work such as recommendation of correction or expression of opinions is implemented by consulting and investigating human rights violations of local residents in advance. The human rights protection officer system is evaluated as further strengthening the human rights protection system along with the National Human Rights Commission by functioning to prevent not only prevent human rights violations but also prevent recurrence. Nevertheless, there are inherent limitations of the human rights protection officer system operated based on the ordinance and various problems derived from the inexperienced operation process. In this article, the current status of human rights remedy work and operational problems were diagnosed, focusing on the human rights protection officer system that has been operated at each local government level for the past decade. Based on this, future tasks necessary for the local government's human rights remedy system to be reborn as an effective system were discussed, such as improving the system, strengthening professional manpower recruitment and training, improving independence, and establishing human rights governance.