J

udges with questionable track records are threatening the nation’s fight against corruption in the regions, a problem that the Supreme Court admits is difficult to address in the short term.

Concerns about the quality of judges in the regions were raised following the controversial exoneration of Bekasi Mayor Mochtar Mohamad on Tuesday by the Bandung Corruption Court.

The mayor became the first graft suspect to win in court against prosecutors from the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which has a 100 percent success rate in Jakarta’s court.

Many questioned the verdict, as one of the judges, Ramlan Comel, was a former lawyer and businessman who was sentenced to two years in jail for graft before his own acquittal at an appellate court.

Hatta Ali, a Supreme Court justice tasked with internal monitoring of the judiciary, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that he did not know that Ramlan was a former graft defendant. The reason for the oversight, he said, was that the court was given very little time to establish local corruption tribunals in the 33 provinces as mandated by the 2009 Corruption Court Law.

The House of Representatives enacted the law as mandated by a 2006 Constitutional Court ruling that declared the then sole Corruption Court in Jakarta unconstitutional because it created a double standard in the way the country handled corruption cases. The court, which then only tried cases handled by the KPK, has not acquitted a defendant since it was established in 2003 by the 2002 KPK Law.

The law stipulates that each province have an ad hoc corruption
court to try corruption cases — whether they originate from the antigraft body or the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) — within two years of the law’s enactment. As of today, the court has established 18 local graft tribunals, while the two-year deadline is up at the end of this month.

Hatta argued that the court was overwhelmed by the deadline and that the selection of poor-quality justices was inevitable. “Two years is just too short,” he said.

Only a few people applied to be judges at local graft courts. The Supreme Court, Hatta said, would have to lower its standards in selecting judges to meet the deadline.

“We were forced to extend the recruitment process since only a few people enrolled.”

But even if the Supreme Court is given more time to conduct the selection, it would still find it difficult to scrutinize the track records of the judge candidates. Anyone, not only career judges, is eligible to become an ad hoc graft judge.

Suparman Marzuki of the Judicial Commission, which oversees the judiciary, said that with such a limited time it was hard to check the backgrounds of those vying to become local judges.

“The commission and civil society have been monitoring the selections, however, we could not scrutinize all of the candidates.”

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court will investigate the ruling made by the Bandung Court that acquitted Mochtar. The panel of judges that adjudicated the case will be summoned to Jakarta on Friday for further clarification.

In Bandung, Ramlan said that he was ready to resign should there be any evidence that he had breached the court’s ethics code in acquitting Mochtar.

“I have studied the facts and believe that none of the charges were proven,” he said. “Therefore, I will be ready to resign,” he said.

Anti-Judicial Mafia Taskforce member Darmono, who is also the deputy attorney general, said that the Judicial Commission and the Supreme Court should examine the verdict to find out whether there were any irregularities in the verdict or whether the KPK’s prosecution was weak.

The KPK was established as an ad hoc body due to flagging public trust in the existing law enforcement institutions – the AGO and the National Police – which were widely believed to be plagued by graft. Unlike the KPK, both can halt investigations and have failed several times in their prosecutions against corruption suspects.

Andi Hajramurni contributed to this article from Makassar, Agus Maryono from Purwokerto and Yuli Tri Suwarni from Bandung