New MA chief told to focus on unfinished legal cases, internal reform

Newly installed Supreme Court chief justice Hatta Ali is expected to pay serious attention to settling unfinished legal cases and to clean-up within the force, said legal experts.

“[Hatta] should set series of stricter rules that would prevent any judge with bad intentions from committing corruption. And if spotted, [he shouldn’t] hesitate to provide severe punishment,” Asep Iwan Iriawan, who is also a former Supreme Court justice, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

He said the newly installed Supreme Court (MA) chief justice is also expected to settle the unfinished legal cases, which according to former chief Harifin Tumpa had reached 8,563 cases in December.

“Set a tight deadline for all justices to examine the unfinished cases, and if they can’t deliver, just simply replace them,” Asep advised.

When asked about the future outlook of MA under its new chief justice, Asep said he was positive that the MA could play more significant role in its attempt to promote internal reform and alleviate the legal backlog.

“Hatta is still young and fresh, thus I really hope that he will be brave enough to reform the force from within,” he said.

Former senior prosecutor Chaerul Imam, however, said he wasn’t that sure that the MA would be able to create necessary breakthroughs.

He said that improved judge recruitment and a tough merit system among the improvements that could bring MA to a higher level though.

“But I don’t see any serious changes or improvements that have been made up until now,” he said.

He said he had also failed to see that the MA had been managed to produce jurisprudence that could serve as a benchmark for other law enforcers like the police and prosecutors.

“This [the failure] is closely related with the judges’ intellectual capability and experience,” he said.

To date, the MA has 52 justices with their own specialties.