Controversy Over Favorable Treatment Of Indicted Former Judges and Public Prosecutors

The Central Investigation Department of the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office (Chief Park Sang-gil) said yesterday 139 people have been indicted after a special nationwide investigation that began in April of judges and lawyers and their “illegal acceptance of cases.” Of those indicted, among whom were brokers, 84 were arrested; 13 lawyers were indicted, and three arrested.

--Even brokers are professionalized

A broker identified as Hong, who is being investigated on the charge of receiving tens of millions of won for his intercession, allegedly developed a “Judiciary Officer Search Program” by himself and established an information network of judges, prosecutors and lawyers. He allegedly found lawyers with the best fit for his customers’ cases and introduced them.

An arrested broker, Kim, allegedly targeted only those who used to be judges or public prosecutors and just started practicing as lawyer. He is accused of receiving 122 million won for his intercessions.

Another arrested broker, Gu, while working as a chief official for a lawyer identified as Park, rented his own office which he paid 40 million won of rental deposit and hired three out of four employees in Park’s office to work for himself. He allegedly paid extra salary to these. Apart from receiving two to three million won as his base monthly salary from lawyer Park, he allegedly received 58 million won, 20 percent of the profits from lawsuit winnings, by mediating 250 court cases last year.

--Former judges and public prosecutors are included

There were five out of 12 indicted lawyers who are former judges and public prosecutors.

A lawyer identified as Kim was indicted on the charge of paying mediation fees for two cases introduced to him through two brokers. He is a former chief prosecutor at the High Public Prosecutor’s Office. However, the prosecution did not arrest him, saying that it arrests someone only if he paid mediation fees of more than 10 million won. It sent just a punishment record of this case to the Korean Federal Bar Association.

A warrant of arrest was issued for lawyer Cho, a former chief judge of a local court, on the charge of paying a mediation fee of 65.2 million won to a broker. However, the court dismissed the warrant, saying that “there is no worry of fleeing or destroying evidences.” It is exceptional for a warrant to be dismissed in the reviewing process in court.

The court also renounced for “lack of reasoning” two warrants to trace bank accounts, requested by the prosecution to prove its suspicion after finding some clues of mediation fee payments by some lawyers who are former judges or public prosecutors. A seizure and search warrant to trace bank accounts is normally issued by courts unless it is requested in too broad a range. An official in the prosecution said, “We could not prove some of the lawyers’ cases we had suspicion on, because we were not able to trace their bank accounts.”

--Illegal acceptance of money under classical excuses such as lobbying activities

A lawyer known as Chung allegedly received 30 million won from a suspect for his lobbying activities, saying he could arrange for the suspect to receive a nonrestraint investigation. He did not do any lobbying for that, though.

Lawyer Lee allegedly received 55.03 million won for letting professional auction brokers who are required to have a certificate use his name 39 times.

jin0619@donga.com