Geum Gwang-yeon, Hanam City Council Chair, Proposes Resolution Urging Enactment of Local Council Act

Geum Gwang-yeon, Chairman of Hanam City Council, attended the 129th regular meeting of the Gyeonggi Eastern Region City-County Chairmen's Association on the 4th and urged the enactment of the "Local Council Act."

Geum Gwang-yeon, Chairperson of the Hanam City Council, proposed a resolution urging the enactment of the 'Local Council Act' at the 129th regular meeting of the Gyeonggi Eastern Region City-County Chairpersons' Council held on the 4th.

At the regular meeting, six chairpersons from Namyangju City Council, Yangpyeong County Council, Seongnam City Council, Gwangju City Council, Icheon City Council, and Yeoju City Council united in agreement and adopted the resolution unanimously.

Since the start of local autonomy in 1991, the Local Autonomy Act was fully revised in January 2022, ushering in the 'Local Autonomy 2.0 era.' However, only the independence of personnel authority for local councils and the establishment of policy support personnel functions were granted, while organization and budget remain under the authority of local governments, limiting the councils' ability to perform their fundamental functions.

The main points of the resolution are: the absence of an independent law governing local council operations results in low status and difficulty effectively responding to residents' demands; local councils should function as check-and-balance institutions with separate organization, budget, and operations from local government executive bodies; and local councils should fulfill their representative roles through specialized legislative activities.

Chairperson Geum emphasized, “For local councils to become representative bodies that check and monitor executive agencies and realize the will of residents, they must sever their subordinate relationship with local governments and become independent institutions based on separate legislation.”

Meanwhile, the Gyeonggi Eastern Region City-County Chairpersons' Council (Chairperson Jo Seong-dae of Namyangju City Council) plans to submit the resolution urging the enactment of the Local Council Act to the Gyeonggi Province City-County Chairpersons' Council to gather support from 31 city and county basic councils.