Most candidates for the top posts at the Judicial Commission have poor track records and should not be selected, the Judiciary Watchdog Coalition said Sunday.
The watchdog has investigated 30 of the 40 people who recently passed the first selection phase of the new judicial commissioners and found that most of them were not worthy of the position.
“They have issues. A lot of them have more than just one issue,” Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) legal researcher Donal Fariz said.
ICW is one of 10 NGOs that make up the Judiciary Watchdog Coalition. Other groups include the Indonesia Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), Transparency International Indonesia (TII), the National Consortium for Legal Reform (KRHN) and the Indonesia Legal Roundtable.
The watchdog listed 39 kinds of drawbacks that most of the candidates for judicial commissioners have shown, including political affiliations, political careers and extraordinary wealth.
Other shortcomings include past allegations of involvement in corruption, nepotism, plagiarism, negligence during tenures as state officials and having committed shameful acts such as sexual harassment and affairs.
A selection committee for the new judicial commissioners recently announced that 40 people have passed the first selection phase. The names include two incumbent commissioners, Soekotjo Soeparto and Chatamarrasjid, and supreme justice Abbas Said.
The committee is now set to announce on Monday the names of those who have passed the second phase. The final phase will leave fourteen names to be submitted to the president on Sept. 17. The House of Representatives will then select seven commissioners from the remaining candidates.
But the coalition warned that only 12 of the candidates are relatively issue-free. It noted that “incumbent candidates cannot be relied upon to lead the Judicial Commission in the future”.
“The incumbent candidates have made no achievements during their tenure at the Judicial Commission so there is no use of keeping them. There are candidates who are more worthy of selection than those two,” Donal said.
He said the selection committee should closely observe the track records of candidates before selecting them. “They should also set a high standard by not letting those with issues to be selected.”
The committee was also urged to cooperate with other state institutions such as the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the Supreme Court, the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) and the Judicial Commission in order to dig deeper into the watchdog’s findings of the candidates’ track records.
The watchdog further recommended to “make a complete performance evaluation of the candidates who are Judicial Commission’s incumbent [commissioners]”.
The next judicial commissioners, Donal said, have to fulfill nine criteria. The first quality that a judicial commissioner must have is integrity.
“This includes having wealth proportionate to their income; never committing corruption, collusion on nepotism; never defending corruption cases and having zero tolerance for corruption and judicial mafia,” he added.
Other criteria the watchdog proposed included having minimal affiliation with politics and businesses in order to avoid conflicts of interest, having public trust and having a track record of contributing to efforts to eradicate judicial corruption.
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