T

he reason why one particular justice was in the spotlight recently was because he seemed a rare species. Justice Artidjo Alkostar increased the sentences of a number of graft convicts to the maximum when they appealed, sending the message that corruption is indeed an extraordinary crime that should be dealt an extraordinary penalty. He overturned the growing legend that the well-connected and well-heeled will be victorious at the highest court even if they are guilty beyond doubt.

So after the House of Representatives on Tuesday turned down three proposed justices from the Judicial Commission, we are still looking at the prospect of uncertainty as to which and how many justices can be relied on at the Supreme Court.

The legislators said the proposed justices '€” Suhardjono of the Makassar High Court, Maria Anna Samiyati, deputy at the Palu High Court in Central Sulawesi and Sunarto, a member of the Supreme Court'€™s monitoring unit '€” did not have any shining achievements on their records. Meanwhile, the commission already stated that none of them had been reported for graft.

And it is this criteria '€” in case the legislators looking for glowing CVs did not notice '€” that is of the utmost public concern.

A high profile justice may have a long string of titles and unqestionable experience. But when people look for justice they hang on to the bare thread of hope that they can reach some measure of restoring their loss through the available systems, which finally end up in the Supreme Court. Yet given the court'€™s long stigma of a '€œjudicial mafia'€, anyone taking the highway up to the court would have to be either madly determined or fully armed with top lawyers and necessary grease '€” as the court is not exactly known for the integrity of most of its law enforcers.

In the middle of last year, Indonesia'€™s judicial system was labeled among the most corrupt by Transparency International'€™s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer '€” after the police and the House itself. The survey is indeed about perceptions, not evidence of graft, but a perception so pervasive that few were surprised at the result of Tuesday'€™s voting at the House Commission III on legal affairs.

The lawmakers dismiss suspicions that they took revenge against the new ruling of the Constitutional Court, that the House can no longer select a justice proposed by the Judicial Commission, and that it can only accept or reject the proposed justices. Yet skepticism of their motives lingers on, given the long list of legislators and councilors who have been investigated and convicted for graft.

The Judicial Commission will have to open the recruitment process again for the 12 justices, a process which, last time, took six months to select three justices from 50 candidates. Soon the nation will go through the general elections '€” and, until the new justices are selected and installed, hopefully no one will be desparate enough to drag his or her case to the Supreme Court, where justices are getting scarce in quantity, not to mention integrity.