This may be a bit of a sudden question, but how much money do judges make?
Let's look at the annual salary first.
"Do you guys know what the starting salary for a judge is?"
Tia hesitated for a moment at my sudden question, then answered without much hesitation.
"Um... roughly around 5 thousand?"
"Hey, even so, it's too little."
It was natural for Alice to react that way.
Judges can be considered the most elite among South Korean public officials.
Those guys' starting salary is 50 million won.
But I had no choice but to raise Tia's hand.
"Oh, I guess it's roughly the same?"
"What? Really?"
"Wow!"
While Tia was enjoying her small victory.
I explained it in a little more detail.
"The monthly salary of a newly appointed judge is approximately 3.6 million won... For reference, this assumes the judge graduated from the Judicial Research and Training Institute. In this case, they receive a one-grade bonus when appointed."
"The salary is... 360? Even if you receive it for 12 months, it's only about 4300?"
I knew that South Korean civil servants' salaries were tight, but I didn't think it was this bad.
Alice looked astonished with that look on her face.
Of course, it's still too early to be disappointed.
"Calm down. Civil servant salaries are supposed to be calculated over a long period of time."
"Oh, really?"
"Judges, like civil servants, receive various allowances. First and foremost is the rank allowance. Judges with less than 10 years of legal experience receive 500,000 won per month."
Then, add 50X12 = 600 to the 4300 from before, and you get 4900.
Up to this point, it was exactly as Tia expected.
Of course, considering the judges' murderous workload, the overtime will be pushed to the limit every month, so the actual figure will be more than 5,000.
Of course, it is foolish to discuss civil servants only by looking at their starting salary.
Isn't the greatest strength of a civil servant none other than stability?
Judges, in particular, see their salaries rise sharply as their pay increases.
Usually, civil servants' later years' salary is about twice their starting salary...
The judges say this is about 2.5 times.
Besides, I haven't even considered the regular attendance allowance yet.
Since judges are also public servants, they naturally receive a regular attendance bonus, which is a bonus exclusively for public servants.
For reference, if you work for more than 10 years, you will receive 50% of your salary twice a year.
"In effect, you get paid 13 times a year."
"Let me summarize it briefly."
For reference, a judge's salary accumulates much more slowly than that of a regular civil servant.
It takes a whopping 1 year and 9 months to accumulate the 1st grade.
From level 14 onwards, the period actually increases.
Anyway, if you overcome all those difficulties and reach the 17th level, your monthly salary will be a whopping 850.
The monthly salary allowance is 950,000 won.
If a judge at the 17th grade pay grade works and receives his/her allowance regularly, his/her annual salary will be approximately 120 million won.
This can never be considered low.
But... is a salary in the hundreds of millions really enough?
In Korea, less than 5% of those who properly report their income earn hundreds of millions of won.
But the judge is a talent far beyond the top 5%.
However, this is not to say that people who do important work should be paid more.
Korean is something you have to listen to from beginning to end.
"Just think about it. Every day, you're buried under mountains of paperwork, ruling lawsuits worth tens or hundreds of billions of won, yet you're only getting a paltry 100 million won..."
In fact, this is not much different for office workers.
But there's one thing that makes judges different from ordinary office workers...
It is simply discretion in business.
In a trial, there is a lot of room for the judge's discretion.
On that subject, judges are not punished for making mistakes.
Even if a judge deliberately commits a mistake, there is little that can be done about it.
It is a perfect environment for committing fraud.
"Imagine you retired after working as a judge and earning 100 million won a year. You still have to keep working, and you want to keep doing it... but what should you do?"
"Well, he's a lawyer, I guess."
Yes, that's right.
You can't quit being a judge and suddenly become a taxi driver.
Having worked in the legal profession my entire life, it is only natural that I would be re-employed in the same field.
It is from here that the evil of preferential treatment arises.
Unlike the civil service, it is an environment where you can earn tens of millions of won at a time in legal fees.
Our attorneys at Jeon Gwan-yewoo will use all their abilities and connections to help resolve your case.
In fact, there is a high probability that they are not even aware that it is illegal.
Until recently, I was the law, so what kind of illegality are you talking about?
Of course, no matter how much the preferential treatment lawyers run wild, it's useless if the prosecutors and judges don't cooperate...
Current prosecutors and judges are also willing to cooperate with them.
Because they too will have to receive preferential treatment later.
It is the power of a strong cartel formed at the Judicial Research and Training Institute.
No matter how upright you are, there is no guarantee that you will be able to remain in public office forever.
I know that better than anyone else.
If a junior member becomes higher in rank than you or is pushed out in politics, you must leave the organization, even if you don't like it.
From then on, they too will fully benefit from the preferential treatment.
As soon as they leave public office, they get jobs at large corporations or law firms, and while working leisurely, they receive fees three times that of regular lawyers.
A new world where you can earn 100 million won in just one month of work. A year of work can earn you billions of won.
This is the level of compensation that can be considered retirement pay.
If I don't do something about these guys right now, no matter how well I investigate, it's useless.
Since there is no guarantee that the 4th generation of the chaebol was killed directly, it is the perfect case to secretly turn it into a case of domestic violence.
"Then what should I do? Should I ask Sister Yeriel for help?"
"No. Ariel isn't a lawyer."
The place where Yeriel's name has the greatest influence is none other than the hunter industry.
I could do it if I put my mind to it, but I don't want to use my wife's name too much.
I was looking over the names of the judges when I suddenly felt aggrieved.
"Wait a minute, now that I think about it, wasn't the association president originally supposed to be in charge of the judges?"
Of course, even if you are the president of the association, it would be difficult to reach out to the Supreme Court...
After all, you can't only do easy things in life.
I immediately pressed the elevator button and changed the destination to the president's office.
Tiring!
The president of the association greeted us with a very bewildered look on his face at our visit, which had not even been preceded by a phone call.
"Huh, huh? What's going on all of a sudden?"
"Mr. Chairman, are you aware of the case we're currently investigating?"
"There's already a fuss about that! An active hunter was beaten to death like a dog..."
"Then I guess we definitely need to take care of that?"
I said this while showing the list of attorneys appointed by Hanam Group.
"You guys, take care of it."
"What? Lawyers? How am I supposed to handle that?"
He protested to me with a very aggrieved look on his face.
Whenever politicians try to arrest conglomerates, it is these former lawyers who become a stumbling block.
Those who realize hereditary innocence, who will make you a homeowner if you give them money.
Even if he is the president of the association, he is not an easy opponent.
But I had a rough idea of what kind of person the president was.
This inspiration is not a completely clean person either.
You can tell just by looking at the last time you entrusted me with the work in Japan.
"I'll leave the method to you."
"Leaving it to them... Is it certain that the conglomerate committed the assault and murder?"
"We are investigating."
"The investigation hasn't even been completed yet, and you want me to call a lawyer?"
"He hasn't even been arrested yet, but don't you see why they've appointed a lawyer for him right away? I don't know what that kid did, but it means he's going to get at least three years in prison!"
Hanam Group is not one of the top groups in Korea.
The chairman's second son was arrested, and seeing that he immediately hired a lawyer, it's clear that something is up.
How much does it cost to hire a full-time lawyer?
I made a strong request to the president of the association.
"If this doesn't work out, everything that happened in Japan will be revealed!"
"Oh, no, that's not it..."
"If the sentence handed down by the court seems insufficient, we will search through Hanam Group, the judge, the lawyer, and even the association president. Do you understand?"
"Do a good job!"
Tia was happily yelling at me next to her and then got hit.
When we returned to the office, we immediately began questioning the victim's colleagues.
Perhaps the victim's popularity wasn't all that great, as her colleagues seemed more bewildered than sad.
"Is Harin really dead?"
"Yes. Has Choi Ha-rin been acting strangely lately?"
"Harin, you've always been a bit strange. Even though we're in the same guild, we've never really spoken to each other. Of course, since we're both electronic hunters, our responsibilities were quite different."
"Should I call it a fourth dimension, or a radio wave system..."
"He would quietly disappear before it was time to leave work. But he still got his work done."
The assessment of victim Choi Ha-rin by her colleagues was extremely ambiguous.
In particular, the evaluation of work attitude is quite poor.
Alice immediately frowned, saying it was suspicious.
"Leaving work on time at the guild? That's a bit suspicious."
"Um... is that it?"
"Even if it's an electronic system, the work is obvious anyway. To hunters, the guild is literally everything. Cheongpung Guild isn't a small guild with five or six employees. It's a fairly large place, though. If you work like that, you're bound to be hated."
Even before Alice joined the special forces, she said she couldn't even dream of leaving work on time.
Even though she was one of the top S-ranked women in Korea.
I nodded without hesitation after hearing her testimony.
"Hmm, if that's what you're doing, then it's really serious."
"Ugh... why does it happen like that?"
"Well, if you're the second best at not caring about what others think... Hey, hey, you're working!"
Let's continue our investigation while avoiding Alice's fists...
One thing has become clear.
"Victim Choi Ha-rin, it seems like your mind was in the soybean field?"
"Bean field? Where exactly is it?"
"I don't know about that. Anyway, I don't think he was a drug addict. His bank statements don't seem particularly out of the ordinary, so if he did enjoy drugs, he probably did it in a healthy way."
"..."
Alice had a face that was difficult for me to describe.
Meanwhile, the autopsy results for victim Choi Ha-rin have finally come out.
I frowned as I received the statement that seemed to directly refute my previous opinion.
"What, the body showed signs of drug exposure? I thought Hunter wouldn't have been in his right mind and attacked by civilians..."
"Then where did you get the drugs?"
"It seems like the perpetrator fed it to him. For now, let's continue gathering testimonies from our colleagues."
At that time, Kim Jeong-tae, who had been heading to the hospital, finally brought the mastermind.
Without hesitation, I walked downstairs to the detention room.