🚨 Regulatory Reform Committee: Government Policy Review and Public Interest Protection

Today Korean Social News | 2025.07.12

📌 Stronger Worker Protection During Heat Waves: 20-Minute Rest Every 2 Hours Now Required

💬 The Regulatory Reform Committee has approved changes to workplace safety rules that require 20-minute breaks every 2 hours when the temperature feels like 33°C (91°F) or higher. This new rule aims to prevent health problems caused by extreme heat. The Ministry of Employment and Labor plans to help small businesses follow these rules and teach workers about heat safety. As climate change brings more extreme temperatures, protecting workers has become more important.

Summary

• The Regulatory Reform Committee is a presidential agency that reviews and coordinates government regulatory policies.
• It checks if new regulations are needed and improves unnecessary regulations to protect public interests.
• Recently, it approved new worker protection rules during heat waves to create better safety measures.

1️⃣ Definition

The Regulatory Reform Committee is a presidential agency that reviews and coordinates government regulatory policies. Simply put, when the government wants to create new rules or change existing ones, this committee checks if those changes are really necessary and reasonable.

This committee works to protect public interests and help the economy grow by carefully reviewing regulations and improving rules that are unnecessary or too strict.

💡 Why is this important?

• It objectively decides if new regulations are really needed and helpful for people.
• It ensures both free economic activity and necessary protection measures.
• It carefully considers the costs and benefits of regulations for society.
• It improves outdated regulations to help society progress.

2️⃣ Main Functions and Roles of the Regulatory Reform Committee

📕 Structure and Organization

• The Regulatory Reform Committee includes experts from various fields. The main structure includes:

  • Up to 20 members total, including 1 chairperson and 2 vice-chairpersons.
  • Both government officials at vice-minister level and private experts participate.
  • Experts from economics, law, administration, science and technology fields are included.
  • Members serve 2-year terms and can be reappointed.
  • Specialized subcommittees handle detailed reviews in specific areas.

• A separate secretariat handles practical work. The main organization includes:

  • Planning coordinators, regulation reviewers, and regulation improvement officers.
  • Close cooperation with various ministries to understand current regulations and prepare improvement plans.
  • Operation of a public reporting center to receive cases of unreasonable regulations from the field.
  • Regular regulation inspections and analysis of improvement effects.

📕 Main Review Functions

• Conducts regulatory impact analysis for new regulations. Main activities include:

  • Clearly analyzing why new regulations are needed and their purpose.
  • Quantitatively evaluating social costs and benefits caused by regulations.
  • Reviewing whether the scope and targets of regulations are appropriate.
  • Checking if alternatives exist or if goals can be achieved through other methods.
  • Specially considering impacts on small businesses and ordinary people.

• Continuously promotes improvement and abolition of existing regulations. Main activities include:

  • Managing regulations that automatically expire after a certain period through sunset clauses.
  • Actively finding unreasonable regulation cases raised in the field.
  • Organizing regulations that became unnecessary due to technological advancement or social changes.
  • Coordinating regulations that overlap or conflict between ministries.
  • Systematically reviewing regulation improvement requests from citizens and businesses.

📕 Recent Major Review Cases

• Worker protection regulations during heat waves is a representative case. Main content includes:

  • Made 20-minute breaks every 2 hours mandatory when temperature feels like 33°C or higher.
  • Evaluated as a proactive measure considering frequent extreme temperatures due to climate change.
  • Had a clear public purpose of protecting workers' lives and health.
  • Support measures for small businesses were also prepared.
  • The committee recognized the urgency and necessity of the regulation and approved the original plan.

• Regulation improvements are being made in various other fields. Main cases include:

  • Expanding regulatory exceptions to foster startups and new industries.
  • Continuously improving analog regulations that hinder digital transformation.
  • Supporting rapid regulatory relaxation during national crises like COVID-19.
  • Reviewing construction of regulatory systems that match new policy goals like carbon neutrality.

Major Challenges in Operating the Regulatory Reform Committee

1. Balance between regulation and freedom: Finding the right balance between necessary protection and excessive restrictions
2. Stakeholder conflicts: Coordinating different interests between those regulated and those who benefit
3. Securing expertise: Need for sufficient understanding of rapidly changing technology and society
4. Political neutrality: Burden of reviewing with consistent standards regardless of government changes
5. Ensuring effectiveness: Ways to ensure committee decisions are properly implemented in the field

3️⃣ History and Major Achievements of Regulatory Reform

✅ Development Process of Regulatory Reform

• Korea's regulatory reform began in earnest in the 1990s. Major development processes include:

  • After the 1998 financial crisis, regulatory relaxation was actively promoted to stimulate the economy.
  • In 2007, the Regulatory Reform Committee was elevated to a presidential agency.
  • In 2017, the Moon Jae-in government presented 'inclusive regulatory innovation' as a national agenda.
  • In 2022, the Yoon Suk-yeol government emphasized enhancing economic vitality through 'dynamic regulatory innovation'.
  • Currently, focus is on building regulatory systems that match new technologies and social demands.

• Regulatory reform methods have also continuously evolved. Major changes include:

  • Initially focused on simple regulatory relaxation.
  • Gradually shifted direction toward qualitative improvement of regulations and smart regulation.
  • Established the principle of allowing what is not prohibited by introducing negative regulation methods.
  • Created systems to temporarily allow new technologies and services through regulatory sandboxes.
  • Currently promoting construction of data-based scientific regulation management systems.

✅ Major Achievements and Effects

• Significant achievements have been made in the economic sector. Major achievements include:

  • Annual economic effects from regulatory relaxation are estimated to be worth trillions of won.
  • Barriers to starting businesses and entering new markets have been greatly lowered, activating innovation ecosystems.
  • Promoting competition in service sectors like finance, telecommunications, and retail has increased consumer benefits.
  • Regulatory exceptions have laid the foundation for new industries like fintech and mobility to grow.

• Also contributed to improving convenience in people's daily lives. Major improvements include:

  • Expanding online civil service processing has improved accessibility to administrative services.
  • Unnecessary document submissions and duplicate reporting requirements have been greatly reduced.
  • New services like 24-hour convenience store delivery and online medicine purchases have become possible.
  • Expansion of sharing economy services has created new job and income opportunities.

4️⃣ Related Terms

🔎 Regulatory Impact Analysis

• Regulatory impact analysis is a system that analyzes the effects of new regulations before introducing them.
• Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) means systematically analyzing in advance the social costs and benefits that will occur when the government creates new regulations or strengthens existing ones. Simply put, it's checking beforehand 'whether this regulation is really necessary and effective'.
• Main contents of regulatory impact analysis include: first, clearly presenting the necessity and purpose of regulations. Second, specifically defining regulatory targets and scope. Third, quantitatively measuring costs and benefits caused by regulations. Fourth, reviewing whether alternative means exist. Fifth, separately analyzing impacts on small businesses and ordinary people.
• Regulatory impact analysis is an important tool for improving regulation quality and blocking unnecessary regulations in advance. It plays a key role in building reasonable regulatory systems that citizens and businesses can accept, and is recommended as an exemplary regulatory management method by international organizations like the OECD.

🔎 Regulatory Sandbox

• A regulatory sandbox is a system that temporarily allows new technologies and services to be tested.
• Regulatory Sandbox means a system that allows innovative products or services that are difficult to launch in the market due to existing regulations to be tested in the market by exempting or relaxing regulations within a certain period and scope. It means being able to freely experiment in a safe space like a 'sandbox'.
• Main features of regulatory sandbox include: first, temporarily allowing new technologies and services that violate existing laws. Second, minimizing risks by limiting testing periods and scope. Third, promoting full-scale regulatory improvement based on testing results. Fourth, prioritizing application to innovation fields like ICT, fintech, and bio-health.
• Korea has been operating regulatory sandboxes since 2019 based on laws like the Information and Communications Convergence Act, Industrial Convergence Promotion Act, and Financial Innovation Act. It has been used in various fields like autonomous vehicles, drone delivery, and telemedicine, contributing to creating innovation ecosystems and is evaluated as an essential system for the Fourth Industrial Revolution era.

🔎 Negative Regulation

• Negative regulation is a regulatory method based on the principle that what is not prohibited is allowed.
• Negative regulation means a regulatory method that basically allows matters not explicitly prohibited by law. This is the opposite concept from positive regulation that specifically lists only what is allowed, containing the philosophy of 'principle permission, exception prohibition'.
• Advantages of negative regulation include: first, market entry is possible without separate legal amendments even when new technologies or services emerge. Second, it promotes creative activities and innovation by companies. Third, it increases administrative efficiency by reducing prior approval or licensing procedures by regulatory authorities. Fourth, it induces autonomous development through market competition.
• However, limitations include risks of unexpected side effects and difficulty protecting public values like safety or environment. Therefore, when introducing negative regulation, it's important to build minimum safety devices and post-monitoring systems together. Recently, many countries are expanding adoption of negative regulation methods to promote digital innovation and foster new industries.

5️⃣ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Can you appeal decisions of the Regulatory Reform Committee?

A: While you can challenge the review results of the Regulatory Reform Committee in court, it is very limited in practice. The committee has considerable authority as a presidential agency, and its decisions directly affect government policy. However, if there are procedural flaws in the committee's decision process or clear violations of laws, you can challenge them through administrative litigation. Also, if a ministry that applied for regulation wants to dispute the committee's review opinion, it can submit additional materials or request re-review. Most importantly, it's crucial to present sufficient evidence and logic from the regulatory impact analysis stage so that reasonable decisions are made. Citizens and businesses can also actively participate in public hearings or opinion collection processes to express their views, and through this, better regulatory policies can be created.

Q: Is regulatory reform always good?

A: Regulatory reform is not unconditionally good. This is because regulations have clear reasons for existing. Appropriate regulations play important roles in complementing market failures, protecting the weak, ensuring fair competition, and protecting safety and environment. For example, food safety regulations, financial consumer protection regulations, and environmental protection regulations are essential devices that protect people's lives and property. Therefore, the core of regulatory reform is 'strengthening good regulations and improving bad regulations'. Good regulations mean regulations that have clear purposes, are effective, proportional, and transparent. Conversely, bad regulations are those with unclear purposes, inefficient means, excessively restrictive, or protecting only the interests of specific groups. The important point is that regulatory reform is not simply 'eliminating regulations' but 'creating better regulatory systems'. For this, we must consider opinions of various stakeholders in a balanced way and promote reform through sufficient social discussion.