Exclusive 'Conveying Residents' Grievances is Improper Solicitation?'...Are Police Innocent?

Seven Gyeonggi Provincial assemblymen have been referred for fine procedures on allegations of improper solicitation related to regional festival support projects, sparking legal debate over how far a politician's legislative activities in conveying residents' requests to administrative agencies should be permitted.

According to the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency and others on the 13th, the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crime Investigation Division referred seven people—four Gyeonggi Tourism Organization employees and three outside evaluators—on charges of violations of the Anti-Graft Law and obstruction of duties on the 22nd of last month.

The police also notified the Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly that seven former and current provincial assemblymen who were members of the Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee would be subject to fines for violations of the Anti-Graft Law.

The police determined that the assemblymen requested in March-April of last year that a specific regional festival be selected as a target for the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization's "Small Festival Development Support Project," and that organization employees delivered the related festival list to outside evaluators, resulting in some festivals being selected.

However, it was not specifically confirmed in the disclosed investigation results whether the assemblymen directly contacted evaluators or instructed evaluation score adjustments, or what legal provisions or screening criteria they demanded be violated.

According to reports, the investigation also found no evidence that organization employees received direct compensation for the assemblymen's solicitation, or that the assemblymen had special relationships with festival organizers or gained financial benefits.

■ "Conveying Residents' and Community Organizations' Inquiries about Call-for-Projects"...Assemblymen Deny Involvement in Selection

According to the assemblymen's account, the incident originated from civil petitions by residents regarding call-for-projects.

Neighborhood councils and local nonprofit organizations that directly applied for projects—unfamiliar with application qualifications, methods, required documents, and screening procedures—inquired with district assemblymen, who then conveyed this information to officials at the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization.

The assemblymen argue that the request at the time was not to mandate the selection of a specific festival, but to provide sufficient information to residents and organizations wishing to participate in the call-for-projects and to request active guidance on related procedures.

They also maintain they had no personal relationships with outside evaluators, did not intervene in screening schedules or evaluation processes, and issued no separate instructions to alter screening results.

The assemblymen also note that not all festivals they questioned or recommended were selected as support targets, questioning the investigation's linking of project inquiries with actual selection results as a single improper solicitation act.

They contend that organization employees compiling the list of related festivals was merely a routine consolidation of repeatedly received civil petitions in the course of their duties, and that materials delivered to outside evaluators were reference materials for review purposes.

Conversely, police determined that the assemblymen's requests exceeded simple civil petition conveyance or festival recommendations, compromising other applicants' fair evaluation opportunities.

Ultimately, it becomes necessary to separately verify the content actually conveyed by the assemblymen, the circumstances under which organization employees delivered it to outside evaluators, and the manner in which evaluators reflected such materials in their screening.

■ Anti-Corruption and Rights Commission: "Explaining Regional Project Necessity, Public-Interest Civil Petitions Are Permitted"

Notable in the assemblymen's explanation is that the current Anti-Graft Law explicitly permits elected officials to convey public-interest civil petitions.

Article 5, Section 2, Subparagraph 3 of the "Act on the Prohibition of Improper Solicitation and Receipt of Money or Valuables" designates an exception to the improper solicitation prohibition for acts by elected officials who convey grievance petitions of third parties for public-interest purposes or propose and recommend improvements to policies, projects, systems, and their implementation.

An official authoritative interpretation by the Anti-Corruption and Rights Commission was confirmed, actually applying this provision to inquiries regarding regional projects.

In a November 17, 2016 response to an "Inquiry on Application of Anti-Graft Law to National Assembly Members," the Anti-Corruption and Rights Commission stated that a National Assembly member's explaining the necessity of projects to related agencies for advancing residents' regional projects constitutes conveyance of public-interest grievance petitions and is permitted.

The inquiry concerned whether a National Assembly member's explaining project necessity and resident opinions to central ministries and preliminary feasibility study agencies for advancing regional Social Overhead Capital (SOC) projects constitutes an exception under the Anti-Graft Law.

The Commission stated that such acts, when constituting public-interest grievance conveyance by elected officials, are permitted under Article 5, Section 2, Subparagraph 3 of the Anti-Graft Law, and that direct conveyance or implementation of official documents in the member's name are also possible.

The scope of public-interest purpose was not limited to national or overall societal interests.

The Commission interpreted that interests of specific social groups or their entire members may also be included in public-interest purposes.

This authoritative interpretation demonstrates that elected officials' conveying opinions regarding specific regional projects is not inherently prohibited.

Therefore, conveying the necessity of small-scale festivals involving residents or requesting administrative guidance to support project participation could constitute legitimate legislative activity depending on its purpose and actual content.

Procedural inquiries about call-for-projects may also have separate exemptions applied.

Article 5, Section 2, Subparagraph 4 of the Anti-Graft Law recognizes as exceptions requiring public agencies to process duties within statutory deadlines or confirming and inquiring about progress and action results.

The same section, Subparagraph 6 permits requesting explanations or interpretations regarding laws, systems, or procedures related to duties in the form of inquiry or consultation.

Should the assemblymen's account be accurate—that they requested guidance on residents' application methods or call-for-project procedures—the applicability of these provisions should be examined.

Conversely, Article 5, Section 1, Subparagraph 8 of the Anti-Graft Law prohibits involvement in supporting subsidies to specific organizations in violation of law, and Subparagraph 12 prohibits requesting evaluation, judgment, or result manipulation in violation of law.

Accordingly, the crux of this case lies not in the fact that district assemblymen contacted the organization, but in whether the content actually conveyed constituted public-interest petitions or inquiries about call-for-project procedures, or whether it amounted to requesting selection of specific festivals beyond statutory standards.

■ Police Also Convey Residents' Opinions and Consult on Budget Procurement...Agency-to-Agency Recommendations Are Routine Administrative Activity

Consolidating residents' grievances and requests and conveying them to related agencies or requesting system improvements and budget procurement has been practiced within police organizations as well.

In fact, the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency, which investigated this case, has announced plans multiple times to reflect resident opinions in policy and consult with local governments on budget procurement.

In February 2022, the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency announced the "Traffic Safety and Communication, Ing" basic plan and stated it would establish reporting channels to collect resident opinions on traffic facilities and regulations and link police stations' and local governments' resident participation systems.

Budget procurement for safety facility improvements to protect vulnerable traffic groups such as children and the elderly, and for installation of unmanned traffic enforcement equipment were also presented as major implementation initiatives.

In March of the same year, the agency announced plans to share data analyzing regions with traffic fatalities with related agencies and utilize it in expanding traffic safety facilities.

At that time, a Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency official stated, "We will pursue consultations with local governments such as cities and counties on traffic safety facility improvements and related budget procurement."

The police pursued activities requesting facility improvements and budget support from other administrative agencies for the public-interest purpose of resident safety.

Formal systems also operated for local police precincts to consolidate residents' opinions and convey them to higher police authorities.

In April 2023, Gangnam-gu, Seoul announced the composition of a private-public-police regional consultative body involving the Gangnam Police Precinct, Seocho Police Precinct, and 22 resident representatives to promote traffic facility improvements.

According to the plan, residents' traffic inconvenience petitions would be received, improvement measures developed through site inspections and consultative body discussions, and related requests conveyed to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency through police precinct deliberation.

This approach involved police, local governments, and resident representatives jointly reviewing the necessity of traffic facility improvements in specific areas and recommending them to responsible agencies.

There are also instances where the National Police Agency formally presented opinions or requested improvements regarding government policies.

In June 2022, the National Police Agency expressed concerns about recommendations from the Ministry of Interior and Safety Police System Improvement Advisory Committee and demanded that the government pursue broader discussions on police systems through consultative bodies involving field police, policy consumers (the public), and experts.

Thus, police have also engaged in consolidating residents' demands, consulting with related agencies, and requesting system improvements from higher authorities.

Admittedly, police traffic safety facility improvements or system improvement recommendations may differ in character from requesting support target selection for individual call-for-projects. However, the fact that among multiple pending issues a specific issue was selected and agency authority was used to secure budget for it bears similarity to this case and warrants examination.

Particularly given that the Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency has utilized resident opinion consolidation and inter-agency consultation as a policy implementation method, the investigation in this case should provide specific explanations of what acts by the provincial assemblymen exceeded routine civil petition conveyance and constituted improper solicitation.

■ Support Project Itself Aimed at Resident Harmony and Regional Commercial Vitality

The nature of the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization's "Small Festival Development Support Project" also warrants examination.

This project is a call-for-projects supporting small-scale festivals held by nonprofit corporations and organizations in Gyeonggi Province, aimed at resident harmony, tradition preservation, specialized local resources, and regional commercial vitalization.

According to Notice No. 2025-29 announced by the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization on March 13, 2025, support targets include nonprofit corporations and organizations located in Gyeonggi Province, and support funds can be used for portions of direct expenses necessary for holding festivals, including production and planning fees, performance fees, stage setup costs, equipment rental fees, promotional expenses, and safety management fees.

Applications were submitted by sponsoring organizations through electronic official documents or email. A condition required self-funded contributions of at least 10% of the support amount.

Given that the project's purpose itself is activating resident-led regional festivals, whether residents' requests for administrative assistance in call-for-project participation should be viewed identically to solicitations for private interests of specific individuals should be determined based on the actual content of the requests.

There are actual cases of neighborhood councils directly operating such projects.

In 2023, the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization selected Suwon City Yulcheon-dong Neighborhood Council's "Eco-Mobility Village-Yulcheon-dong Car-Free Day" as an exemplary case of the "Small Festival Development Support Project."

The project began for the first time in 2023 and has undergone its third call-for-projects as of last year.

In 2023, 127 applications were received and 58 festivals ultimately supported; in 2024, 56 out of 252; and in 2025, 84 out of 319 were selected.

On April 7 last year, the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization expanded the support plan from an initial 60 to approximately 80 due to increased application numbers compared to the previous year and the necessity of discovering superior content.

According to the assemblymen, in this process some of the festivals recommended or inquired about by assemblymen were not ultimately selected.

■ Gyeonggi Province Ordinance Also Specifies Provincial Assembly Members' Festival Deliberation Participation

Formal grounds for reflecting local assembly opinions in regional festival support appear in related ordinances.

Article 7, Section 2, Subparagraph 2 of the "Gyeonggi Province Small Festival Support and Development Ordinance" permits the Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly to appoint provincial assemblymen it recommends as members of the Small Festival Deliberation Committee.

It establishes institutional channels allowing local assembly members representing residents' opinions to be reflected in official deliberation procedures.

Additionally, the same ordinance's Article 9 provides that evaluation bodies composed of private experts evaluate festivals according to screening criteria set by the province.

The structure separately provides for a deliberation committee where local assembly members can participate and a private evaluation body handling professional assessment.

Certainly, an ordinance provision permitting provincial assemblymen to be appointed as official deliberation committee members does not permit individual members' informal selection demands.

However, given that the ordinance anticipates local assembly participation in festival deliberation, it becomes necessary to distinguish between members' policy opinion conveyance and actual improper intervention in the selection process.

Particularly if the assemblymen's claims are accurate—that they did not participate in official review bodies and did not contact outside evaluators—the critical examination targets become how organization employees conveyed the assemblymen's requests and how evaluators received them.

■ Academic Research Also Describes Regional Budget Procurement and Petitions as Key Activities of Elected Representatives

Conveying residents' demands to administrative agencies and securing necessary budgets is addressed in domestic and international academic research as an important political role of elected representatives.

In "Analysis of the Impact of Political Factors of Local Assembly Members on Regional Budget Allocation: Focusing on the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education's Small-Scale Educational Environment Improvement Project Budget," published in 2019 in 『Urban Research』 No. 15 by the Incheon Research Institute, Park Jae-yong described local assembly members as actors simultaneously pursuing interests of their electoral districts and the broader regional autonomy.

This research analyzing the 9th Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly's small-scale educational environment improvement project budget showed that membership in relevant standing committees and the budget and settlement special committee statistically significantly influenced regional school funding distribution per district.

The research empirically demonstrates that local assemblymen's regional budget procurement activities constitute political factors actually influencing budget distribution. Simultaneously, it suggested improvements including strengthening transparency in regional allocation criteria and budget deliberation.

There is also legal research analyzing the relationship between local assemblymen's representative activities and regulations.

In "Remarks on Improving Conflict-of-Interest Prevention Systems for Local Assembly Members," published in 2026 in 『Local Autonomy Law Research』 Vol. 26, No. 2 by the Korean Local Autonomy Law Association, Yang Seung-mi pointed out structural limitations in uniformly applying conflict-of-interest regulations designed around individual civil servants' duty performance to local assembly members.

In particular, she raised the problem that boundaries between direct personal interests and indirect/collateral interests are unclear, and that regulatory systems for legislative activities performed as members of resident representative bodies may lack sufficient sophistication.

This research concerns conflict-of-interest prevention systems rather than directly judging whether this case constitutes Anti-Graft Law violations. However, it serves as an argument that elected local assemblymen's democratic representative activities should be understood distinctly from ordinary civil servants' duty performance.

Internationally, responses to resident petitions have been addressed as important activities of elected representatives.

In their 1987 work 『The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence』, Bruce E. Cain, John A. Ferejohn, and Morris P. Fiorina analyzed the process by which elected representatives form representative authority through direct contact with district residents and resolving their petitions.

In "Bureaucrats or Politicians? Part II: Multiple Policy Tasks," published in 2008 in 『Journal of Public Economics』, Alberto Alesina and Guido Tabellini demonstrated the necessity of distinguishing policy authority between elected politicians and professional bureaucrats.

They explained that in areas where resident preferences are uncertain and policy coordination is important, the role of elected politicians becomes critical, while in areas requiring control over specific interest influences or short-term political judgments, the role of professional bureaucrats becomes important.

This discussion demonstrates the necessity of distinguishing between the role of consolidating residents' demands and politically coordinating them, and the role of reviewing and implementing individual projects according to established criteria.

■ Supreme Court Distinguishes "Wrongdoing Exists Yet Obstruction of Duties by Duress Judged Separately"...Standards from Judicial Precedent

A point the assemblymen particularly emphasize is that individual assemblymen's acts must be distinguished from those of organization employees and outside evaluators.

Even if assemblymen conveyed residents' requests to organization officials, how organization employees organized this information, how they conveyed it to outside evaluators, and how evaluators reflected such materials represent separate factual relationships.

The assemblymen contend they had no contact with outside evaluators and made no coercive demands for selecting specific organizations or intervening in evaluation results.

In disclosed police investigation results, whether assemblymen directly contacted evaluators or instructed score manipulation was not specifically presented.

Regarding obstruction of duties charges applied to organization employees and outside evaluators, there is a Supreme Court precedent distinguishing between the existence of wrongdoing and the establishment of obstruction-of-duties by duress.

In a December 27, 2007 decision (Case No. 2005do6404), the Supreme Court examined a case where a regional public corporation president improperly intervened in new employee hiring.

The president manipulated the written test scores of specific applicants and had screening criteria changed to allow other applicants to participate in interviews.

However, the Supreme Court ruled that obstruction-of-duties by duress does not automatically establish merely because employees acted under the president's improper instructions.

Duress in obstruction-of-duties by duress refers to creating misperception, confusion, or ignorance in the other party and exploiting it. In this case, employees acted knowing of the improper instructions and mutually conspiring or acquiescing, the court reasoned.

The Supreme Court maintained a not-guilty judgment on obstruction charges, noting that no party suffering misperception or confusion was identified, regardless of wrongdoing occurring.

In another May 30, 2017 decision (Case No. 2016do18858), the Supreme Court also distinguished between actual exercise of influence and establishment of obstruction-of-duties by duress.

The case involved a company managing director offering an opinion to select a specific applicant for passing in new employee hiring interviews, with remaining interviewers accepting this and determining final successful candidates.

The prosecution determined that another interview panel member who had already completed interviews and exited had their fair and objective employee hiring duties obstructed, leading to indictment. The first and second trials found obstruction guilty.

However, the Supreme Court ruled that the exited panel member's duties were already complete after submitting score sheets, and even if the managing director later exercised influence over other panel members, no misperception or confusion could be said to have occurred for the exited member.

Additionally, the chief executive, as final hiring authority, was found to have known and tolerated that panel members would decide successful candidates through consultation.

The Supreme Court, finding legal error in the lower court's obstruction-of-duties guilty judgment, reversed and remanded the case.

Both precedents involve hiring-related cases with different specific factual circumstances from this regional festival support project case. Additionally, they concern obstruction-of-duties by duress, not determining whether political influence constitutes obstruction-of-duties by force or violates the Anti-Graft Law.

However, these cases provide legal principles that mere existence of certain acts does not automatically establish all obstruction-of-duties charges and that the target and method of obstructed duties, the other party's awareness, and similar factors must be specifically judged.

Accordingly, this case should examine distinction between the assemblymen's requests, organization employees' list conveyance, and evaluators' selection acts.

Particularly, how evaluators received related materials and what judgments they actually made in screening are matters requiring confirmation regarding obstruction-of-duties charges. Duress, coercion, autonomy, and independence emerge as key points.

■ Fine Notification Not Final Judgment...Provincial Assembly Also Concerns About Legislative Activity Chilling

The fine procedures applied to the assemblymen in this case differ from criminal punishment procedures applied to organization employees and outside evaluators.

Article 23, Section 1, Subparagraph 1 of the "Act on the Prohibition of Improper Solicitation and Receipt of Money or Valuables" provides that fines not exceeding 30 million won may be imposed on public officials who improperly solicit other officials for third parties.

Section 7 of the same article requires agency heads to notify management courts handling civil proceedings under the Civil Procedure Act about fine-subject violators.

Accordingly, the police notifying the Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly of assemblymen as fine subjects does not mean fines are finally confirmed.

Courts will examine individual members' specific acts and related materials to judge improper solicitation establishment and fine imposition.

The assemblymen argue they can contest fine imposition based on legal exceptions for public-interest petition conveyance and their explanation that they did not intervene in actual project selection processes.

The assemblymen also argue that after extended investigations determined they were not criminal prosecution subjects, police collectively referred the seven related members to fine procedures.

However, investigation records regarding the investigation authority's circumstances and grounds for deciding fine notification are not confirmed, making it difficult to definitively determine the investigation agency's internal decision motivation.

Police judged that the assemblymen's requests compromised other applicants' fair evaluation opportunities, while the assemblymen counter that police misinterpreted public petition conveyance and administrative guidance as improper solicitation.

One assemblyman stated, "Without knowing the festival organizing groups' or participating businesses' names, assemblymen conveyed residents' demands, and when organization officials delivered information to outside evaluators, assemblymen's names were apparently not included—under such logic, all political activities requesting agencies to address electoral district grievances should be deemed improper solicitation."

Within the Provincial Assembly, concerns emerged that boundaries between general legislative activity and improper solicitation may become unclear.

A Provincial Assembly official questioned, "When assembly opinions are compiled and conveyed to the provincial government, wouldn't those acts also potentially become unlawful?" and stated, "Provincial assemblymen's activities represent Gyeonggi residents and district residents, so under this interpretation, representative democracy itself would be shaken."

Another Provincial Assembly official noted, "The Provincial Assembly has actually not proceeded with any ethics committee convocation or other measures regarding this matter."