Suwon City in Gyeonggi Province has become the first in the country to create the "Human Rights-Friendly Citizen Appointment Interview Operation Guidelines" to prevent discrimination and human rights violations that may arise during the citizen appointment and selection process.
The guidelines apply to all citizen-involved appointment and selection interviews, including the appointment of neighborhood leaders, open recruitment for various committee members, and the selection of citizen participation groups. They set standards for fair and objective interviews, excluding questions and evaluation factors unrelated to the work.
There have been concerns that some appointment interviews have included or evaluated factors unrelated to the job, such as age, place of origin, and family relationships. To preemptively address these concerns, Suwon City has institutionalized its interview standards.
The guidelines include the following: a principle of job relevance-focused interviews, a principle of non-discrimination, a principle of preventing human rights violations, objective evaluation criteria, and precautions for interviewers. They also provide examples of acceptable and discouraged questions so that these can be immediately utilized in practice.
Suwon City promoted this institutional improvement based on the "Suwon City Basic Ordinance on Human Rights." The human rights officer will monitor the implementation of the guidelines and continue to cooperate with all departments in Suwon City to ensure that the guidelines are applied throughout the citizen appointment interview process.
A Suwon City official stated, "As citizen participation increases, fairness and human rights protection in the appointment and selection process are becoming increasingly important," and added, "We hope that the creation of these guidelines will serve as an opportunity for human rights-friendly citizen appointment interviews to spread to other local governments."
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