The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) announced that it has uncovered cases of improper budget execution by the Supreme Court, including the wrongful disbursement of incentive payments to Supreme Court justices and the excessive procurement of IT equipment.
The BAI released the results of its regular audit of the Supreme Court containing these findings today (the 31st).
According to the BAI, the National Court Administration paid an average of 2 million won in cash every month to Supreme Court justices (12 in total) from 2022 to April 2024, despite a prohibition on regularly paying incentives without legal grounds.
This was carried out separately from the disbursement of specific task expenses (5.12 million won per month).
The Minister of the National Court Administration also received 3 million won in cash every month during the same period.
The BAI added, "From May 2024 to September 2025, the payment dates and amounts varied by justice, making it appear on the surface as though they were not fixed monthly amounts," but noted that "in 2024, the annual payment amount per person remained similar."
The total amount of incentives disbursed in this manner reached 1.299 billion won.
The BAI stated, "Administratively, it was handled by the National Court Administration, but it was actually paid by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court."
In response, the Supreme Court stated that the payments were intended to encourage the hard work of the justices and judicial research officers, while adding that it respects the BAI's findings and has prepared an improvement plan.
A Supreme Court official explained, "The trial work of Supreme Court justices is conducted twice a month through petty bench deliberations, and incentives have been paid to encourage the hard work of justices, judicial research officers, and others in connection with such work performance."
The official continued, "Given the nature of Supreme Court duties, the execution status of the justices' incentives does not conflict with the intended purpose of the incentive budget. However, respecting the BAI's findings, we have prepared and are currently implementing a self-improvement plan starting this July to make differential payments based on performance and workload."
Separately, the Chief Justice's security and protocol team and the official residence security guard unit also received between 1.5 million and 2.8 million won per month.
The Chief Justice did not receive incentives personally.
Furthermore, although the National Court Administration had concluded an IT equipment maintenance service contract requiring the contractor to perform operating system (OS) upgrades, it claimed that the verbal agreement differed and treated OS upgrades as an additional separate task, paying an extra 650 million won.
In addition, when purchasing IT equipment, the administration failed to accurately calculate the required quantities or expanded purchase quantities to deplete the budget when unit prices dropped during the contracting process.
As a result, as of the end of last year, surplus spare equipment was being stored, including 6,131 PCs—enough for one-third of the staff to use—along with 2,983 printers and 559 scanners.
An inspection of work promotion expense execution from 2022 to 2025 revealed that the National Court Administration purchased approximately 100 million won worth of alcoholic beverages (wine) without clearly specifying their intended use.
Cases were also detected where travel expenses for field surveys by enforcement officers were excessively paid beyond regulations during the processing of auction cases, and where book publication procedures involved receiving priority deliveries without contracts followed by retroactive contracting, or indirectly paying manuscript fees to internal employees.
Additionally, the BAI notified the court of the need to devise a plan to make the Court Practice Manual freely accessible to the public to enhance convenience for citizens proceeding with "pro se" lawsuits (representing themselves).
This audit underwent on-site inspections in November and December of last year, followed by an exchange of opinions on the findings, and the results were finalized on the 20th.
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