Ji Gui-yeon, a senior judge at the Seoul Northern District Court who was indicted over allegations that he accepted drinks and entertainment, will step away from trial duties for the time being. Judges who are indicted are typically removed from trial work through an assignment to judicial research.
The Supreme Court's National Court Administration assigned Ji as a judicial research judge effective Oct. 2, legal sources said on the 1st. Judicial research is a system under which judges conduct research in the legal field, either overseas or in Korea, instead of presiding over trials. The assignment runs through Feb. 21 next year. The move appears to follow Ji's indictment last month by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials over the entertainment allegations.
The allegations surfaced in May last year when lawmakers from the Democratic Party of Korea claimed that Ji had been treated to drinks by people connected to his official duties at a bar in Seoul's Gangnam district. The anti-corruption office indicted Ji without detention on charges of violating the law banning improper solicitation and graft, alleging that in around August 2023 he had two lawyers pay a 4.09 million won ($2,900) bar tab at a reservation-only establishment in Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam District, Seoul, with Ji's share of the entertainment estimated at 1.36 million won on that single occasion.
In a statement, Ji's side said he "briefly attended a gathering with junior colleagues and left immediately afterward," adding that "even if, as the anti-corruption office claims, he had stayed at the gathering until the end, the amount of money or goods provided by any single person would not exceed 1 million won." The statement continued: "The cost of the gathering was paid separately by the two junior colleagues at different times, each with their own funds," and said that "treating the two as a single person goes beyond any possible meaning of the statutory language."
Ji presided over the first trial of former President Yoon Suk-yeol on charges of masterminding an insurrection, serving as chief judge of Criminal Division 25 at the Seoul Central District Court. In February this year, he sentenced Yoon to life in prison. He was transferred to the Seoul Northern District Court in the regular reshuffle later that month.
