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ollowing a series of pretrial petitions from graft suspects, including most recently by the politically wired former president director of state port operator PT Pelindo II, RJ Lino, Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) chairman Agus Rahardjo on Wednesday called on the Supreme Court to issue a pretrial guideline to prevent judges at lower courts from making controversial rulings.

As the highest judiciary body, the Supreme Court oversees courts and judges across the country.

'€œWe hope that the Supreme Court will issue a circular on pretrial guidelines to prevent judges from using their '€œcreativity'€ in future pretrial hearings. We hope the Supreme Court will hear our concerns,'€ Agus said after a meeting with Constitutional Court leaders on Wednesday.

Agus said he had made the petition after consulting Constitutional Court justices on Wednesday.

During the meeting, court justices expressed concern over the difficulties faced by investigators after being ordered to halt their graft investigations by pretrial decisions.

Controversy over pretrial hearings erupted last February, when South Jakarta District Court judge Sarpin Rizaldi ordered the KPK to wind up its graft probe into then prospective National Police chief Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan, despite the Criminal Law Procedures Code (KUHAP) not yet recognizing pretrial mechanisms as a legitimate means of halting KPK investigations.

In May, the Constitutional Court exacerbated the issue by inserting an article into the KUHAP recognizing a pretrial hearing as a legal means of challenging a graft investigation.

Following the Constitutional Court'€™s ruling, other South Jakarta District Court judges ruled that the KPK had to halt graft probes into former Makassar mayor Ilham Arief Sirajuddin and former Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) chief Hadi Poernomo.

Agus raised the concern just days before the South Jakarta District Court began the pretrial hearing of Lino, who is said to have strong connections to high-profile figures in the government, including Vice President Jusuf Kalla.

Lino made headlines after National Police'€™s Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso was sacked from his post after Lino complained to Kalla over the police'€™s move to raid his office in October in an unrelated graft case.

Contacted separately, Lino'€™s lawyer Maqdir Ismail confirmed that the hearing of Lino'€™s pretrial petition would kick off on Monday next week.

The lawyer, who represented Gunawan in the latter'€™s pretrial victory in February, called on the KPK to attend the pretrial hearing, adding that the commission should forsake its habit of skipping initial hearings in order to force the court to issue a postponement.