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The Significance of the National Petition System

#Sotong (소통)

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The National Petition system of South Korea is a relatively new communication platform between Korean citizens and the government. On August 17th 2017, the “public communication platform” was established on the Blue House’s website.

Citizens can file a public petition after logging into the Blue House’s website via their social media accounts. When users file a petition, they can share an automatically generated private link to the petition’s page with their friends or upload it on the internet. Only petitions that are supported by 100 users (Korean link) will then be displayed publicly. If the petition receives over 200,000 endorsements within 30 days after it is shared with the public, government officials have to provide an appropriate response on the matter. Lawmakers can also submit bills to the National Assembly to make or change legislation based on widely endorsed petitions.

On November 16th 2018, a man named Kim Seong-Soo (김성수) killed an employee at a PC room. It was revealed that Kim had been taking antidepressants, and there were heated debates over whether he should be given a lower sentence. Over one million citizens endorsed a petition asking the presidential office not to ease Kim’s punishment on grounds of his mental health. The petition eventually led to reforms of the criminal law, specifically, to the removal of a clause that states that mental or physical disability must be a mitigating factor in sentencing crimes.

In 2008, Cho Doo-Soon was sentenced to 12 years in prison for kidnapping and sexually assaulting an elementary schooler. Citizens filed a petition to demand the government not to free him after the sentenced period and imprison him for life instead. As a response, Cho Kuk, senior presidential secretary to President Moon Jae-in for civil affairs, said that while he could understand the public’s anger, there was no legal basis for a retrial and the court could therefore not hand out a new sentence.

On September 30th 2017, a petition that requested to repeal the criminalization of abortion was filed with the Blue House. The petition obtained more than 200,000 endorsements within 30 days, and Cho Kuk responded by saying that the current legislation regarding abortion needs to be reformed. While at the time, he also stated that a fetus’s “right to life” must be upheld, in April 2019, the Constitutional Court of Korea ruled that the criminalization of abortion is unconstitutional. In January 2021, the previous laws were finally repealed.

In September 2019, an elementary school student named Kim Min-Sik died in a car accident near his school. As this accident made headlines in popular newspapers, more than 410,000 citizens (Korean link) endorsed a petition that asked for stronger punishments for drivers involved in car accidents near schools. This petition led to the creation of a new law, called the “Min-sik Law,” which states that drivers who kill someone near a school are to be sentenced to a minimum of three years in prison. However, shortly after the law became effective, some experts criticized the new law as violating the “principle of proportionality,” because drivers could be punished even when both people involved in the accident were to blame. It was also suggested that three years of imprisonment is too harsh a punishment (Korean link) for drivers who had no intent to kill a child. In response, the Korean government stated that in cases where the accident was not the driver’s fault, the Min-sik Law does not punish them anyways, and reminded the public that this law was necessary (Korean link) to ensure public safety.

The Nth Room case involved perpetrators who blackmailed women and children into performing sexually explicit acts via Telegram. On January 2nd 2020, a petition that demanded a thorough investigation of the case in cooperation with other countries was filed to the Blue House. More than 200,000 people endorsed this petition within 30 days since its submission. In March 2020, a petition calling for the full disclosure of the personal information of perpetrators and users of the “Nth Rooms'' -- Telegram chat rooms where the sexually exploitative videos and images were shared -- was also filed. On March 24th 2020, the National Police Agency Commissioner General Min Gap-ryong promised to set up (Korean link) a special digital sex crime investigation department within the agency. Moreover, the government said that they will consider various factors, including the harm that has been caused as well as the potential impact on their family members, when revealing the identities (Korean link) of those involved in the Nth Room case.

Many Korean Instagram users add the hashtag #Sotong when they upload a photo. #Sotong means “communication,” and it is a way for Instagram users to tell other users to follow them or to send them a direct message to become online friends. People also commonly upload photos or posts with this hashtag on other social media platforms, such as Facebook. 

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