A gloomy outlook is overshadowing much-demanded reforms within the country's judiciary, after lawmakers endorsed a new law limiting the Judicial Commission's authority to supervise the Supreme Court, legal experts warned Friday.

The newly passed Supreme Court law bars the independent commission from examining possible flaws in verdicts. Instead, it is only allowed to conduct an ethical probe into judges.

Article 32 of the new law names the Supreme Court as the highest authority to supervise the judicial process at all court levels, putting the Judicial Commission at a lower position than the Supreme Court.

Hamid Chalid of the Indonesian Transparency Society (MTI) said the law, approved on Thursday, was a setback in the government's efforts to fight corruption and collusion within the judiciary.

He joined other critics in saying such internal supervision did not reflect a spirit of reform within the Supreme Court, widely considered one of the country's most corrupt institutions.

"Internal supervision is never effective in an institution such as the Supreme Court, where the abuse of authority has occurred often. It's no secret that justices often conspire (in handling cases)," Hamid said.

Noted legal expert Frans Hendra Winarta expressed similar views, adding the internal supervision would keep alive the Supreme Court's "mafia" practices.

"The idea of justices supervising other justices is just ridiculous. People from other backgrounds or institutions should be allowed to do this job to ensure objectivity," Frans said.

He also criticized another "non-reformist" article in the law stipulating the money generated from court cases did not require an audit by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK).

Article 81 of the law states because individuals must pay court fees themselves, the money could be categorized as non-tax revenue, thus a BPK inspection was not required.

"This does not promote transparency within the court. The court coffers are just the same as state coffers, so it does require an audit," Frans argued.

Experts also slammed the extension of the retirement age of justices from 65 years to 70 years.

"The move to extend the retirement age of Supreme Court justices is suspicious because it was not based on any research. It came out just like that; it's groundless," said Hamid, co-founder of the Center for Indonesian Law and Policy Studies.

"It looks like this law was passed to help certain individuals (in the Supreme Court) maintain their political positions."

The most contentious issue during the bill's deliberation was the retirement age extension, rather than the court supervisory system, which was deemed more substantial.

Frans said justices were often slow in resolving cases, particularly because of old age and the failure to allocate cases to judges with the relevant expertise.

"The law should instead have considered adopting a cameral-based system within the Supreme Court to support the reform agenda within the judiciary," he said.

"This would allow justices to handle cases based on their own particular knowledge.

"It's impossible for a justice to handle all kinds of cases -- criminal, civil and more specific one such as commercial cases -- when legal cases have now become more complicated."

Currently, justices are appointed randomly to handle cases, with no consideration for their background or expertise -- a system criticized for being slow and inefficient.

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