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ctivists and legal analysts grouped under the Civil Society Coalition for a Professional Judiciary filed a judicial review with the Constitutional Court on Tuesday to scrap the House of Representatives’ role in the selection process of Supreme Court justices.

The coalition filed for a review of Article 8 paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the 2009 Supreme Court Law, as well as Article 18 paragraph 4 and Article 19 paragraph 1 of the 2011 Judicial Commission Law.

The articles set the ratio of three justice candidates for each post and gives authority to the House to select the justices instead of simply giving them the role of approving or rejecting candidates on the list.

Under the 2011 Law, the Judicial Commission is tasked with assessing, selecting and later forwarding the quota of candidates to the House.

“The Judicial Commission is bound to meet the ratio [three candidates per position] as stipulated in that provision [in the 2011 Judicial Commission Law],” Erwin Natosmal Oemar of the coalition said on Tuesday.

“And later, the quota chosen gives options to the House to choose one from each of the three candidates nominated by the commission.”

Refki Saputra of the Indonesian Legal Roundtable said the current justice selection mechanism violated the independence of the judiciary.

“The Constitution stipulates that the House has the authority only to approve the recommended candidates instead of selecting from them,” he said, referring to Article 24 A Paragraph 3 which stipulates that justice candidates are recommended by the commission to the House for approval.

He said the House modelled their role on the mechanism for selecting the Bank Indonesia governor, the National Police chief and the Indonesian Military chief.

“The main problem is that the role of the House is still vital here. We believe it could easily lead to politicization of the selection, which could result in the selection of poor quality justices,” he added.

The coalition however rejected criticism that the new mechanism they were proposing would be worse as it would abolish the role of the House as the final gatekeeper in the process.

Refki argued that under the proposed mechanism, the House could reject a candidate proposed by the commission, but only if they had sufficient grounds.

Commission spokesman Asep Rahmat Fajar said the Judicial Commission would respect the outcome of the judicial review whatever it might be.

Asep said the commission appreciated the efforts of the coalition to improve the selection mechanism.

Asep said the commission, which has admitted it had made a mistake in selecting Muhammad Daming Sunusi, a candidate who joked about rape during the House selection process, was troubled by the existing rules.

“With the 3:1 ratio, it’s hard to get good candidates. As we all know several times we have been unable to meet the quota required by the Supreme Court as we have chosen instead to focus on candidate quality rather than trying to meet the quota,” Asep said.

Asep added that the Judicial Commission would also be prepared to appear at the Constitutional Court hearing.