Arrest warrant issued to judge advocate for unexcused absences

Arrest warrant issued to judge advocate for unexcused absences. April. 10, 2015 07:18. jks@donga.com.

Arrest warrant was issued to a judge advocate working at a state-owned company for the alternative military service on charges of absence without permit, traveling overseas on working days and making false travel expense claims.

The Uijeongbu District Prosecutors` office has issued an arrest warrant to a judge advocate surnamed Choi on charges of absence without leave for 37 days and travelling overseas for 30 days in five occasions (violation of the Military Service Law, official document fabrication, etc.). Another charge on Choi was fabrication of business trip documents 13 times to claim travel expenses amounting to 720,000 won (approx. 660 dollars). Choi reportedly confessed to some charges. The prosecution plans to release Choi from his position immediately after accusations are confirmed. But there is growing criticism over lax management and supervision on judge advocates.

Choi, known as a son of the owner of domestic hotel chain, graduated from a law school in Seoul and passed the Korean Bar examination. He had worked at the Uijeongbu District Prosecutors` Office since April last year and is currently working at the Korea Legal Aid Corporation in Daejeon. Although the prosecution said that Choi has never broken into the internal network (to manipulate the attendance records), some raised speculation that Choi has accessed the corporation’s internal network from the outside several times.

The government started tightening discipline of public officials since public servants’ negligence of duties recently have come to light as in Choi’s occasion. Another case in point was a staff in the Inspection Office under the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan. The staff was absent in both Seoul and Sejong offices under the pretense of business trip, causing strong criticism after being caught by the inspector group under the office of senior presidential secretary for civil affairs. Due to this occasion, the Bureau of Civil Service Discipline and Investigation has requested for business trip records and evidences of high-rank officials in the central ministries and agencies.

Against this backdrop, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors` Office performed an unexpected inspection on the attendance at office on Tuesday morning. Thanks to the inspection, public servants working at the prosecutors` office ran from the nearest subway station to the prosecutors` office around 9 a.m., not to miss the time to attend the office.