TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Ethics council says chief justice may have lied
Change Size
Constitutional Court Chief Justice Anwar Usman reads out a ruling on a 2019 presidential election dispute on June 27, 2019. (JP/Donny Fernando)
The Constitutional Court ethics council says it has found indications that Chief Justice Anwar Usman may have lied about his reasons for recusing himself from a series of cases on the candidacy requirements for next year’s presidential election.
Anwar recused himself from ruling on three ultimately unsuccessful petitions advocating for changes to the 40-year age minimum for presidential and vice presidential candidates, but he then voted in a subsequent petition in favor of adding an exception to the age restriction for prospective candidates who had served as elected regional leaders. Anwar’s vote decided the latest ruling 5 to 4, effectively removing the legal barrier stopping Gibran Rakabuming Raka, his 36-year-old nephew by marriage and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s eldest son, from running for vice president next year. The about-face decision rendered the previous rulings void.
“There are two versions of the reason behind [Anwar’s] recusal: sickness and avoiding conflict of interest, one of which must be true. The other is a lie,” ethics council chief Jimly Ashiddiqie said after a hearing on the issue on Wednesday.
The ethics council was responding to a complaint from the Election Advocacy Team (TAPP) asking it to investigate the alleged lies. The advocacy group cited the dissenting opinion of Justice Arief Hidayat, which contended that the chief justice had told Arief his absence was due to health issues but had also told Deputy Chief Justice Saldi Isra that it was because he wanted to avoid conflicts of interest.
"The act of lying violates the code of ethics of the court justices. In this case, [Anwar] has violated the principle of integrity," Gugum Ridho Putra of TAPP told the ethics council on Wednesday, as quoted by Kompas.id.
Read also: Ethics council to probe Chief Justice Anwar
The council is also investigating alleged conflicts of interest resulting from Anwar’s kinship with Gibran, who benefitted from the ruling that altered the candidacy requirements.
