A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a magistrate has limited law enforcement and administration authority. In civil law systems, a magistrate might be a judge in a superior court; the magistrates' court might have jurisdiction over civil and criminal cases. A related, but not always equivalent, term is chief magistrate, which historically can denote a political and administrative officer.

Magistrate derives from the Middle English word magistrat, denoting a "civil officer in charge of administrating laws" (c.1374); from the Old French magistrat; from the Latin magistratus, which derives from magister (master), from the root of magnus (great).

Baek Ji-Young (Hangul: 백지영, born March 25, 1976) is a South Korean pop and ballad singer.

Baek began her music career in 1999, entering the Korean dance scene with her first album Sorrow. The first single, "선택" (Choice), was unusual in that it was one of the first Korean pop songs to feature Latin beats. However, this single proved to be popular and charted very well. She quickly followed this album with a second, Rouge, which came out in April 2000, selling 360,000 copies and cementing her status as one of Korea's most popular female dance artists.

Two years after the release of Tres, Baek released her fourth album Smile in September 2003. Although not a runaway success, it managed to sell a decent number of copies, placing 46th for the year. However, her real comeback occurred in 2006, when Baek released her fifth album Smile Again in March. "사랑 안해" (I Won't Love), her first single from the album, was a ballad, unlike the rest of her Latin-style singles. Although this was a significant change, it proved to be a very popular song, getting to the top spot on certain performance show charts. This change was not a permanent one, as there were many Latin/dance tracks on the album. In fact, the second single has seen Baek going back to her musical roots, as Ez Do Dance is a sexy Latin number. She performed this single until the end of summer 2006, at which point she finished promotional activities for the album. In November 2006, Baek won an award for "Best Female Solo Singer" from the MKMF Awards and was one of the candidates for the "Overseas Viewer" award as well.