The Supreme Court is set to proceed with disciplinary action against Ji Gui-yeon, a senior judge at the Seoul Northern District Court who has been indicted over allegations that he accepted hospitality, including drinks paid for by lawyers.
Choi Jin-soo, the Supreme Court's ethics audit officer, said on the 6th that "I understand that disciplinary committee proceedings will already go forward," responding to calls for Ji's punishment from Rep. Kim Yong-min of the Democratic Party of Korea during a parliamentary audit of the Supreme Court by the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee. Choi added that both instances in which Ji allegedly accepted hospitality from lawyers were included in the scope of the disciplinary case.
Lawmakers from the ruling party criticized the judiciary for shielding its own after courts rejected four warrants sought by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) in its probe of Ji. Noh Kyung-pil, head of the National Court Administration and a Supreme Court justice, countered by asking, "Are you asking the National Court Administration to intervene in trials?"
Seo Young-kyo, chair of the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, said, "This is not about intervening in trials. Isn't it basic that the courts should be even more severe toward their own judges?" Noh replied that "the National Court Administration cannot intervene in individual cases," adding that "the chief justice naturally cannot intervene in individual cases either."
The CIO indicted Ji on charges that he had two lawyers pay a bar tab worth 4.09 million won at an establishment in Seoul's Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam District, around August 2023.
The agency also confirmed that in September 2024, a group of five people including Ji spent about 4.16 million won at the same bar. It declined to press charges over that episode, however, concluding that the entertainment amounted to less than 1 million won per person and that a connection to Ji's official duties was difficult to establish.
