정책 이슈

On August 31, 2026, the Board of Audit and Inspection's regular audit of the Supreme Court revealed that the highest judicial body, which is supposed to interpret laws and teach the legality of public funds, had for years been regularly paying cash to Supreme Court justices and the head of the National Court Administration, in violation of its own budget execution guidelines. From 2022 to September 2025, 1.299 billion won was disbursed as incentive payments. Twelve Supreme Court justices were already receiving 5.12 million won per month in special activity expenses, and separately, an average of about 2 million won was handed over in cash twice a month until April 2024. For some periods, an additional 1 million to 1.5 million won was added.

The head of the National Court Administration received an average of 3 million won per month during the same period, and thereafter 2 million to 4 million won. As of 2024, the annual payment per Supreme Court justice was similar, ranging from 26.5 million won to 30.5 million won. The Chief Justice himself did not receive any. However, the security and protocol team and the official residence security guards separately received regular payments of 1.5 million to 2.8 million won per month, totaling approximately 160 million won. The Board of Audit and Inspection viewed the National Court Administration as the executive body, but the actual payments were made by the Chief Justice.

More serious than the mere listing of numbers is the violation of the prohibition clause. The Supreme Court's budget execution guidelines stipulate that incentive payments should be made to excellent departments and employees, and prohibit monthly or regular payments without legal basis. In the past, the National Court Administration provided special activity funds to Supreme Court justices for the purpose of collecting judicial and trial information, but this was discontinued after 2019. In place of the discontinued funds, incentive payments categorized as 'other operating expenses' were introduced. From 2022 to 2025, approximately 4.5 billion won was allocated solely for incentive payments. Only the name and account changed; the reality of regular cash payments continued. After May 2024, the payment dates and amounts were slightly varied for each Supreme Court justice to outwardly appear as if they were not monthly fixed amounts. However, the total annual amount did not significantly change. The form was adjusted, but the substance remained. What started as a direct violation of the prohibition clause later shifted to merely avoiding the appearance of a prohibition.

The Supreme Court Administration's explanation is familiar. It stated that the purpose was to encourage the justices and research judges involved in trials before and after the sittings of small panels or the full bench, and that it considered the burden on the Chief Justice of concurrently managing judicial administration, external affairs, and trial support. It also said it would accept the audit results. However, when asked to provide details of expenditures and supporting documents, it replied that it was difficult to submit them because the materials were not prepared. This is like giving cash without keeping records, and then claiming there are no materials when asked later. If it's impossible to verify where public funds went after the fact, then it's not encouragement but an unverifiable sophistry. The logic that good intentions negate the need for proof is not accepted anywhere in public service. If a lower agency made the same statement, the court would read it as an excuse and an illogical argument. The core of this incident is that the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body, allowed itself that excuse.

This reveals a moral insensitivity. Supreme Court justices are the ultimate interpreters of the nation's laws. For years, they received regular cash payments prohibited by budget execution guidelines, yet there is no sign that they rigorously scrutinized this prohibition as they would apply it to their own cases. Those in a position to judge the budget abuses and misuse of public funds by other agencies remained silent about the cash coming to them. Silence is close to consent. This is not a mistake of one or two months, but a repetition that has continued since 2022. Repetition becomes custom, and custom erodes conscience. The statement that trials are difficult and therefore encouragement is needed is not, in itself, a wrong sentence. However, there is no reason why encouragement should be a monthly cash payment without legal basis. It could be publicly given to excellent employees, with supporting documents, and within limits. Distributing cash without doing even that minimum is a privilege disguised as encouragement. Privilege always presents itself as a necessity. This idea stems from the complacent legitimacy of the South Korean judiciary, which was a colonial power institution. Emotionally, these anachronistic ideas could persist, and still do, by using the excuse of their role in monitoring and controlling the public, rather than serving as a convenient administrative body for the people.

The lack of conscience becomes clearer in the parallel budget execution. In the same audit, it was confirmed that 650 million won was additionally paid for operating system upgrades already included in the computer equipment maintenance contract, citing a verbal agreement. In the process of purchasing PCs from 2022 to 2025, replacement units already purchased in the previous year were bought again, or spare parts were secured without reasonable grounds. As of the end of 2025, there were 6,131 PCs, 2,983 printers, and 559 scanners remaining as spare parts. This is enough for about one-third of the court's 18,669 personnel. In 2025, when the unit price of printer contracts decreased, the purchase volume was increased by 1,055 units to exhaust the budget. For travel expenses for auction case status surveys, 94.5% of the samples were estimated to be in excess of regulations or duplicated. Cases were also discovered where over 100 million won worth of alcohol was purchased with business promotion expenses without clarifying its purpose, and where books were received first without a contract, a post-contract was made, and then manuscript fees and review fees were indirectly paid to affiliated judges. Spare parts warehouses and cash incentives coexist in the same institution during the same period. Interpreting this merely as a practical error is to whitewash budget waste and privilege with administrative jargon.

A more uncomfortable point is the discontinuity of memory. The suspicion that the National Court Administration, around 2015, recovered public relations-related budgets in cash and distributed them as incentives to chief judges and high-ranking judges, had already been revealed once during the judicial abuse investigation. The core of that incident was also the fixed-amount payment of public funds to individuals in cash. If, after nearly 10 years, only the name remains as an incentive and the account has merely changed to 'other operating expenses,' then this is not learning but the reproduction of a habit. This audit, on the contrary, proves what the judiciary reflected on at that time. If they had reflected, undocumented cash would not reappear. If they had reflected, they would not have used the technique of scattering the payment dates to maintain prohibited monthly payments. Reflection is not a matter of words, but a matter of ledgers. Reflection without ledgers is not reflection.

The judiciary is an independent body under the Constitution. Its independence is a mechanism to prevent external pressure on trials, not a privilege that makes budget execution an unexaminable area. There are institutional limitations, such as the fact that only accounting audits, not job performance audits, are possible under the Board of Audit and Inspection Act. There is also a gap, as there have been no regular audits since 2021. For an institution that knows these limitations and gaps to not leave evidence is to use these limitations as a shield. The Board of Audit and Inspection's action was a notice of caution. No recovery, individual disciplinary action, or referral for investigation was at the forefront. This is the ceiling for accounting audits of independent bodies. However, a low ceiling does not mean that the conscience of the floor also lowers. Whether individual Supreme Court justices designed the envelopes is a separate issue. If the recipients do not raise an issue, that silence becomes the system. What is required of the highest judges is not just legal knowledge. It is the sensibility to hesitate in the face of public funds. When that sensibility disappears, all that remains is the veneer of authority.

The results of this audit are not a blanket condemnation that the entire judiciary is corrupt. It is something more common and more dangerous. It is the attitude of continuing prohibited acts by changing their form, explaining the intent when asked, claiming no records exist, accepting the results but ending accountability with a warning. We call this 'moral insensitivity.' Two severely developmentally disabled individuals ate a 1,500 won ice cream without paying, their parents apologized to the store owner and paid 100,000 won in compensation, and the owner did not want punishment, but the police charged them with joint theft because 'the two acted together.' A nation that demands receipts from its citizens is a nation of joint corruption that leaves no receipts for itself. Unconscionable behavior does not only appear in grand crimes. It appears in accepting money that cannot be received, calling it a custom, citing hard work when explanations are lacking, and choosing cash to avoid scrutiny. The independence of trials and budgetary accountability are not in conflict. Those who circulated cash and erased evidence did not protect independence; rather, they emptied the ledger of conscience under the guise of independence. Even if the case is closed with a warning, what remains open is that void. Filling that void begins not with the Audit Board's statement, but with breaking the silence in places where cash is received.