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KY calls for House to pass judiciary bill
Judicial oversight: Chairman of the Judicial Commission Aidul Fitriciada Azhari (center), accompanied by commission member Farid Wajdi (left) and deputy chairwoman Sukma Violetta addresses a meeting with the editorial board of The Jakarta Post on Tuesday
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span class="caption">Judicial oversight: Chairman of the Judicial Commission Aidul Fitriciada Azhari (center), accompanied by commission member Farid Wajdi (left) and deputy chairwoman Sukma Violetta addresses a meeting with the editorial board of The Jakarta Post on Tuesday. They presented the commission’s vision and mission and expectations of the country’s judicial reforms.(JP/Jerry Adiguna)
In support of judicial reform through the strengthening of its supervisory powers and measures to deter judges from committing ethical and legal violations, the Judicial Commission (KY) has stressed the importance of passing the judiciary bill, which is currently being debated, into law.
Commission chairman Aidul Fitriciada Azhari said that if the House of Representatives passed the bill into law, the commission would be able to more effectively supervise judges.
“We would like to call this a shared-responsibility system,” Aidul said during a visit to the offices of The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
He added that if responsibility could be shared between the Supreme Court and the Judicial Commission, then judges’ misconduct could be mitigated.
Through the future law, the commission expects to gain greater authority to supervise judges’ recruitment, promotion, transfer and training processes, thus minimizing the chance of corruption.
“The formula of corruption is power minus accountability,” said Sukma Violetta, the commission’s deputy chairwoman, explaining the repeated incidents of graft at the Supreme Court.
Numerous corruption cases have implicated officials of the country’s highest judicial institution recently. In April, Central Jakarta District Court registrar Edy Nasution was arrested for accepting a bribe to influence a case review for a civil dispute concerning Malaysia-based pay TV operator Astro and a member of conglomerate Lippo Group, PT First Media.
The case implicated Nurhadi, the Supreme Court’s court secretary, with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) confiscating a large amount of money from his house and office.
The other case involved a mid-ranking Supreme Court official, Andri Tristianto, who reportedly demanded Rp 400 million (US$30,567) from graft convict Ichsan Suaidi through his lawyer for a three-month delay to the verdict at the Mataram District Court in West Nusa Tenggara.
Sukma said that with more authority to supervise the recruitment of judges, the Judicial Commission could monitor and prevent judges from conducting corruption, collusion and nepotism, such as recruiting members of their family as judges or clerks in the same area.
The commission also expects that the expected new regulation will allow deserving judges to be
promoted.
“There are now a lot of honest judges who perform well being moved to East Nusa Tenggara or Maluku,” she said.
The second important point proposed in the bill aims to allow the commission to take a greater executive role.
“Currently, most of the recommendations issued by the commission are rejected by the Supreme Court,” Sukma said.
In 2015, the commission advised the court to sanction 105 judges for various ethical and legal violations. However, only 12 recommendations were followed up, and about 60 were not even followed up, she noted.
The commission hopes to see Indonesia learn good practices from other countries, such as Turkey, where the judicial council has a more executive role.
“That’s why in Turkey, they were able to immediately fire 6,000 judges,” Aidul said.
Separately, Commission III member Arsul Sani of the United Development Party (PPP) acknowledged the importance of passing the judiciary bill into law.
“With this law, the authority for supervision between the Judicial Commission and the Supreme Court will become much clearer than it is now,” he said.
The law, he added, is crucial, as current laws governing judges are piecemeal and incoherent.
The House is expected to pass the bill into law this year. (win)
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