T

he effort to reform the graft-tainted Constitutional Court (MK) is back to square one with the court on Thursday annulling a government regulation in lieu of law, known as a Perppu, drafted soon after the arrest of disgraced former chief justice Akil Mochtar.

By annulling the Perppu, which had been approved by the House of Representatives, the court threw out several crucial provisions including those mandating the establishment of a permanent ethics body to oversee the court and an independent selection panel.

Also annulled was a provision barring candidates with recent links to political parties from becoming a justice in the court.

A petition for a judicial review of the law was filed in January by a group of lawyers soon after the House endorsed the Perppu, proposed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in December last year.

The court based its ruling on the fact that the Perppu was drafted in haste and was made without full legal consideration. It also argued that the provision for a justice candidate not to have had links with a political party for at least seven years was based merely on populist demand.

Justices described the effort to reform the court as '€œstigmatization'€.

'€œStigma is usually based on generalization. [Former chief justice] Akil Mochtar'€™s [case] was used as the main argument that it was inappropriate for a political party member to become a justice,'€ Justice Harjono said when reading the ruling on Thursday. '€œSuch stigmatization harms constitutional rights.'€

Yudhoyono signed the Perppu in October last year following the arrest of Akil on bribery allegations earlier in September.

During a plenary session to decide the future of the Perppu, 221 lawmakers gave the go-ahead to the initiative, with 148 rejecting it.

The court, which has also long opposed the idea of the Judicial Commission being given back its oversight authority, argued that the Constitution guaranteed the independence of the judiciary.

In its ruling on Thursday, the court declared that giving the Judicial Commission the role of supervising the court by establishing a selection panel and an ethics body could be seen as '€œundermining the law'€.

The Perppu stipulated that members of the selection panel and ethics body should be nominated by the Supreme Court, the House, the government and the Judicial Commission.

The justices also based their ruling on the grounds that a '€œchecks-and-balances mechanism is only applicable to legislative and executive bodies'€ and not the judiciary.

The court has openly opposed Yudhoyono'€™s plan by itself planning to set up an ethics council without the involvement of the Judicial Commission.

The justices also concluded that although the President had the prerogative to issue a Perppu, what they described as '€œsubjectivity'€, such subjectivity '€œshould be based on something objective'€.

Responding to the ruling, Law and Human Rights Minister Denny Indrayana said the government deplored the court'€™s decision, particularly on the political-party provision.

'€œThe court itself once ruled that KPU [General Elections Commission] commissioners and Bawaslu [Election Supervisory Committee] members must not be from a political party. The court appears to be inconsistent,'€ he said.

The government, however, accepted the decision. '€œAlthough we disagree with the ruling, we have no choice but to honor it to show our adherence to the law.'€

Lawmaker Martin Hutabarat from the Greater Indonesia Movement (Gerindra) Party, one of political parties that opposed endorsement of the Perppu, said he was perplexed by the fresh ruling.

'€œWith the ruling, people like Hamdan Zoelva, who is a member of a political party, can be selected to represent the government in the court,'€ he said.

Constitutional law expert Refly Harun condemned the ruling, saying that it was not based on legal considerations but rather on the anger of the justices.

He said that the court missed some of the most crucial points in the Perppu. '€œThe selection panel had no authority to select justices; it would only help with the selection process,'€ he said. '€œWithout such a panel, transparency, accountability and participatory principles will not exist.'€