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House wants to provincialize graft courts
The House of Representatives has insisted on eventually placing corruption courts under the authority of district courts, with rights activists quickly lamenting the move as an effort to undermine the country’s drive to eradicate corruption
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he House of Representatives has insisted on eventually placing corruption courts under the authority of district courts, with rights activists quickly lamenting the move as an effort to undermine the country’s drive to eradicate corruption.
The House’s working committee, which has been deliberating the corruption court bill at a hotel in Lippo Karawaci, Banten, has apparently ignored increasing public pressure to maintain the exclusiveness of the existing Corruption Court, which has been closely linked to the success of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in jailing many corrupt officials and legislators.
The committee said that as part of the Indonesian judicial system, in which the Supreme Court is the top authority of general courts, graft courts should come under the jurisdiction of district courts and hold positions equal to labor courts, economic courts and fisheries courts.
The working committee agreed to initially attach graft courts to high courts in 33 provinces for financial and human resources reasons.
“Later, corruption courts will be formed at district courts in regencies and municipalities, for efficiency and practical reasons,” committee chairman Arbab Paproeka said.
Gayus Lumbun, the committee member from the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), said corruption courts would first be established in five provinces — North Sumatra, Jakarta, East Java, Bali, and South Sulawesi.
"We then plan to expand the court to other provinces when more human resources become available," he said.
The hearing of graft cases at district courts, however, would be a huge step backwards in Indonesia's fight against corruption because district courts are widely recognized as being highly corrupt, Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) says.
A recent study by ICW found that district courts had freed 70 percent of defendants in corruption cases, whereas no graft defendants had been freed by the current ad hoc Corruption Court in Jakarta.
The House committee was also still discussing the selection criteria for ad hoc judges and ratio of career judges to ad hoc judges on panels.
Establishing courts at regency levels was a very risky move, said Wahyudi Djafar from the Corruption Eradication Commission’s Helper Coalition, a coalition of various anti-corruption NGOs.
For example, Wahyudi said, “If defendants in the court are regency officials, they will probably try to intervene in court proceedings by abusing their authority”.
Transparency International Indonesia (TII) chief Todung Mulya Lubis said there were not enough credible ad hoc judges to man all seats at regency-level courts.
“If due to a lack of human resources regency-level courts disappoint people seeking justice, public faith [in the legal system] will be shattered,” Todung said.
The Constitutional Court ruled in 2006 that a new law on the Corruption Court must be passed by December 2009, otherwise the court would lose its legal standing. (hdt/mrs)
