The House of Representatives and the government were at loggerheads over the composition of judges' panel at the Corruption Court during deliberations of the anticorruption bill, which both sides want passed into law by the end of the month.
The working committee reading the bill insisted on maintaining the current composition of three ad hoc judges and two career judges, while the government represented by the justice and human rights minister advocated changing the panel composition to two ad hoc and three career judges.
The current bill requires only that the panel should consist of both ad-hoc and career judges.
The bill must be passed into law by December 2009, or the court will lose its legal standing, according to a 2006 Constitutional Court ruling.
Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) and anticorruption activists have called for more ad hoc judges than career ones as they claim ad hoc judges are more professional.
Recent ICW research shows that the Corruption Court has a 100 percent rate of sending those involved in corruption to prison, while career judges at district courts sentenced only 50 percent of the individuals involved in graft cases.
"We want to have more ad hoc judges, while the government insists on having more career judges," a member of the committee, Lukman Hakim, from the United Development Party (PPP) said at the House of Representatives in Jakarta on Wednesday.
"The government says that career judges must be prioritized and that for now, it is hard to find a sufficient number of ad hoc judges," he added.
Teten Masduki, the secretary-general of Transparency International, told The Jakarta Post the government's position made him think it intended to weaken the anticorruption drive.
"I am very disappointed with the government. The Corruption Court could lose its integrity if the majority of its judges are career judges," he said.
Teten also rejected the proposal for ad hoc judges to be certified by the Supreme Court.
"That requirement would grant the Supreme Court great influence over the Corruption Court," he said.
However, Teten said that if professionalism was the issue, then the committee and the government could seek institutions with greater integrity than the Supreme Court.
The chairman of the National Consortium for Legal Reformation (KRHN), Firmansyah Arifin, said the future fate of the Corruption Court would fall into the hands of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
"The Democratic Party insists on using the current bill submitted by the government," he said. (hdt)
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