Disband regional corruption courts: Constitutional Court

Constitutional Court justice chief Mahfud MD says that regional anticorruption courts should be disbanded as they do more harm than good.

“We need to start thinking about getting rid of regional anticorruption courts and have their function returned to normal district courts,” Mahfud told reporters on Friday, as quoted by antara.com.

He said that the regional courts had proven counter-productive to the country’s fight against corruption.

“Regional antigraft courts actually do more damage, and consider corruption as something acceptable,” he said.

He added that the regional courts’ weakness was down to its poor recruitment system.

“In regions sometimes an unemployed person can take tests, lobby here and there and end up being made an antigraft court interim judge. The monitoring is weak, the collusion is easy and the selection system careless,” he said.

Mahfud hoped that there would only be one single anticorruption court in the country and assured that the removal of regional courts would not go against any law or Constitutional Court ruling.