800 Won is Grounds for Dismissal, 1.2 Billion Won is Pocket Change

Listening to the commentary of the esteemed Attorney Kim Kyung-ho.
Shared from Facebook.
【800 Won was a reason for dismissal, while hundreds of millions in cash were "incentives"】
- A piece dedicated to Supreme Court Justice Oh Seok-jun
On December 2, 2011, the 1st Division of the Seoul Administrative Court ruled in favor of a company that had dismissed two bus drivers (2011Gu-hap25876). The amount one driver had underpaid the company was 400 won twice, totaling 800 won. While the National Labor Relations Commission ruled it an unfair dismissal, the court overturned that decision. The presiding judge was Presiding Judge Oh Seok-jun, now a Supreme Court Justice.
The ruling was meticulous. Since the company's net profit margin was 7%, the court calculated that 400 won per passenger represented 6.25% of the 6,400 won fare, meaning it was nearly all the profit obtained from that passenger. The court ruled that recording 6,400 won as 6,000 won in the daily operation logs was not a mere custom but intentional. It stated that even without a prior disciplinary record and despite the small amount, the employment relationship could not be maintained. A livelihood was cut off over 800 won.
On November 25, 2022, he became a Supreme Court Justice.
On August 31, 2026, the Board of Audit and Inspection revealed that from January 2022 to September 2025, the National Court Administration paid approximately 1.299 billion won in cash "incentives" without legal basis to 12 Supreme Court Justices, twice a month. This amounts to 26.5 million to 30.5 million won per person annually. The recipients included all justices presiding over cases, excluding the Chief Justice and the Minister of Court Administration. Calculated from their inauguration dates to today, the amount per person exceeds 100 million won.
The State Treasury Management Act stipulates that state payments must be made via bank transfer (Article 22, Paragraph 3). Exceptions for cash are only permitted in cases such as banking system failures, and even office operating expenses must, in principle, be handled via government procurement cards (Article 24, Paragraph 5). These were cash payments—neither bank transfers nor card transactions. No evidence remains of who received how much and when. There was no differentiation based on performance. As the Secretary-General of the Board of Audit and Inspection stated, "The problem is not the differentiation, but the regularity."
The structures are similar. Recording 6,400 won as 6,000 won was evidence of intent. If so, what is the nature of the processing since May 2024, where the timing and amounts were split to make it appear as if they were not fixed monthly payments? The total annual amount remained the same.
I ask Justice Oh Seok-jun: Has your livelihood improved with that money? The public cannot know where it was spent because there is no supporting documentation. Intentionality regarding 800 won resulted in dismissal, while the distribution of hundreds of millions in cash resulted only in a "caution" from the Board of Audit and Inspection.
“I hope you will now place that same scale you used to weigh 800 won onto your own pocket.”
That is the minimum level of common sense!
September 14, 2026.
Written by Ho-in