Incheon official loses court case over repeated use of subordinate as personal driver
Published: 10 Sep. 2025, 13:11
![Close-up of a court mallet [GETTY IMAGES BANK]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2025/09/10/0adf015a-c269-4a6f-a34e-272274ddfb59.jpg)
Close-up of a court mallet [GETTY IMAGES BANK]
An Incheon public official who was demoted for repeatedly using a subordinate as their personal driver more than 300 times, claiming it was carpooling, lost a lawsuit challenging the punishment.
On Wednesday, the Incheon District Court ruled against a civil servant from Ongjin County, Incheon, who filed an administrative suit to reverse a demotion order issued by the county governor.
The servant, who held a managerial position, rode to and from work 332 times between January 2021 and February 2023 in a car driven by a subordinate. In September 2022, they also used an official government vehicle designated for forest disaster response to visit their hometown in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang, and made the subordinate cover the fuel costs.
From September 2019 to June 2023, the servant was also found to have received meals, alcohol and entertainment totaling 1.37 million won ($990) on 41 occasions from employees of a forestry business contracted by the county, according to a Board of Audit and Inspection probe.
In June last year, the Incheon City Personnel Committee ordered the servant’s demotion and imposed a disciplinary surcharge of 4.12 million won, three times the amount of the illicit benefits they received.
“The value of the entertainment they received from job-related individuals exceeded 1 million won, and the misconduct was both continuous and repetitive,” the committee said. “They also habitually accepted personal services from subordinates without offering any form of compensation.”
In response, the servant filed a lawsuit in November, arguing that the meals and drinks were unrelated to their job and amounted to only 820,000 won in total, which should be considered a minor offense. They also claimed the commuting arrangement was a carpool offered voluntarily by their subordinate.
The court rejected their claims.
“The individuals who provided the servant with entertainment were clearly related to their official duties, and the subordinate who drove them to and from work was their junior and subject to performance evaluations by the servant, making it difficult for the subordinate to refuse,” the ruling stated. “Despite holding a position requiring high standards of legal compliance and integrity, the servant continued to engage in misconduct.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY SHIN HYE-YEON [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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