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n the wake of a Constitutional Court (MK) verdict allowing citizens to use pretrial hearings to challenge legal allegations levied against them, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) is planning to empower its legal bureau to anticipate a large stream of lawsuits from graft suspects.

Deputy KPK commissioner Johan Budi said that the antigraft body would recruit more people for the bureau to anticipate an upcoming increase in pretrial hearings.

'€œEven before the MK ruling the interest [to challenge suspect statuses] was strong. We predict that we will have busier days ahead, which will draw more of our time and energy that is supposed to be used to focus on ongoing investigations,'€ Johan Budi said on Wednesday.

The Constitutional Court passed revisions to the Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP) on Tuesday, granting rights for citizens to use pretrial hearings to challenge suspect statuses imposed by law enforcement institutions.

The court'€™s justices decided that the KUHAP'€™s Article 77, which determines matters suitable for pretrial petitions, should include challenges to a suspect status.

The court also revised Article 1 point 14, Article 17 and Article 21 point 1, requiring investigators to collect two items of evidence before naming someone a suspect. Previously, the articles did not specify a minimum number of items of evidence that an investigator must collect before naming a suspect.

The antigraft body was facing a series of pretrial lawsuits from graft suspects after the South Jakarta District Court annulled the suspect status of National Police deputy chief Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan.

The KPK had slapped the legal status onto the three-star police general, once an adjutant to former president Megawati Soekarnoputri, for an alleged bribery case involving the police institution.

Seven KPK graft suspects expressed their intentions to file similar motions after Budi received his favorable verdict in February.

But interest waned after the South Jakarta court crushed three of them on the basis that the KUHAP'€™s Article 77 did not formally authorize the pretrial mechanism to decide on cases regarding a suspect status.

It limited the authority of the pretrial mechanism to the determination of the legality of an arrest or detention, the termination of an investigation or prosecution and a request for compensation and rehabilitation. With the MK ruling, the KPK worries that 24 suspects, who so far have not shown any interest in filing a challenge, would soon file similar petitions.

'€œHowever, we respect the MK ruling,'€ said Johan.

The National Police, on the other hand, applauded the MK ruling, saying it had shown that the country'€™s criminal law was evolving to protect citizens'€™ rights.

'€œThe fact that suspect-naming can now be contested is definitely a challenge for law enforcers, but we are confident that it should be fine as long as we abide by the law [during investigations],'€ said police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Charliyan.

The MK approved the revisions to the KUHAP following a judicial review request from PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia official and graft convict Bachtiar Abdul Fatah.

In 2013, the Jakarta Corruption Court sentenced Bachtiar to two years in prison and ordered him to pay Rp 200 million in fines after being found guilty of corruption involving an environmental project. The Supreme Court increased the sentence to four years last year.

Bachtiar had won his pretrial lawsuit to challenge his suspect status and was temporarily released, but the Attorney General'€™s Office later decided to proceed with the case.

Bachtiar won his MK case with the support of Maqdir Ismail, the lawyer who also managed to win Budi'€™s lawsuit against the KPK.