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n view of a recommendation by the country’s judicial monitoring institution, the Judicial Commission, the House of Representatives is proposing to limit the terms of Supreme Court Justices to only five years. The proposed stipulation, which is included in a bill on the judiciary, is meant to set a high standard of integrity for justices and prevent any intervention by outsiders.

Article 32 of the draft law, which was proposed by House Commission III overseeing human rights, security and legal affairs upon the commission’s request, would stipulate that a Supreme Court justice’s term would be five years long, with possible extensions every five years after an assessment and evaluation by the Judicial Commission. The evaluation results must go to Commission III to get approval for an extension.

A member of the House’s Legislation Body (Baleg), Arsul Sani, who is with the United Development Party (PPP), said in a hearing on Monday that the provision was aimed at building up an instrument to improve the standards of integrity in the judicial environment.

“We are talking about integrity. So far, the Supreme Court tends to cover up cases that implicate justices. We’ve never seen the court dismissing its problematic justices by its own will. They seemed to be protected,” Arsul said.

He added that the proposed article would result in a form of indirect monitoring of the court because the House often received complaints from the public that most of the time certain parties intervened in the Supreme Court’s rulings and verdicts.

The limitation, Arsul said, would not pose a serious distraction for the performances of justices, as a similar term limitation for Constitutional Court justices has proved. Article 22 of Law No. 8/2011 on the Constitutional Court sets its justices’ terms for five years, with a possible extension for another term.

Under the draft law, the House also plans to strengthen the authority of the Judicial Commission to monitor the Supreme Court and make its recommendations binding. Until now monitoring of judges has been under the jurisdiction of the Judicial Commission and the Supreme Court and the court has tended to ignore the commission’s recommendations about problematic judges.

The Indonesian Judges Association (Ikahi) has stated it is of the opinion that there is no urgency to implement the periodical assessment and evaluation of Supreme Court judges.