Lack of justices blamed for judicial corruption<\/p>\n
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Corruption and backlog cases remain major problems at the Supreme
\nCourt, despite efforts to solve them, Chief Justice Bagir Manan
\ntold the country's legislators on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court chief admitted that they had failed to
\neradicate judicial corruption, but was quick to add that the
\nfailure was due to a lack of justices, funds and facilities.<\/p>\n
Bagir told legislators at the Annual Session of the People's
\nConsultative Assembly that the Supreme Court had tasked its
\nmonitoring division to establish a judiciary that was free of
\ncorruption, collusion and nepotism by optimizing its monitoring
\nfunctions.<\/p>\n
\"As a result (of the monitoring), the court has proposed
\npunitive actions against 11 judges,\" he said, pointing to the
\nSupreme Court's achievement in its anticorruption drive this
\nyear.<\/p>\n
In addition, the court's secretary-general had taken punitive
\nmeasures against five Supreme Court employees for misconduct, he
\nadded.<\/p>\n
\"By last month, the Supreme Court had received 397 reports on
\nalleged misconduct by its employees and judges,\" he said.<\/p>\n
The monitoring division, which was set up last year, handles
\nreports on corrupt, collusive and nepotistic practices allegedly
\ninvolving the court's employees and judges.<\/p>\n
Even so, few of the misconduct cases have been brought to
\ntrial.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW)
\nreported on the widespread corruption in the country's judicial
\nsystem, which involved a wide range of players -- from Supreme
\nCourt justices to parking attendants of a district court.<\/p>\n
The watchdog even labeled the judiciary as \"the true winner in
\nthe corruption race in the country\".<\/p>\n
In a sensational bribery case last year, a middleman involved
\nin the affair was convicted, while the two Supreme Court justices
\nlinked to the bribery were acquitted from all charges.<\/p>\n
During his presentation, Bagir complained that the court did
\nnot have enough justices, despite the installment of 18
\nadditional justices in June. He said that the 43 judges currently
\nsitting on the court were not sufficient to handle the backlog of
\n16,581 cases.<\/p>\n
The number of backlog cases this year is higher than last
\nyear's 15,570 cases. The Supreme Court receives some 5,000 new
\ncases every year.<\/p>\n
\"There will be four justices who are going into retirement
\nthis year,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Ideally, the Supreme Court should have 51 justices.<\/p>\n
Bagir expected the judges to process some 10,000 backlog cases
\nthis year.<\/p>\n
He urged lawmakers to issue regulations to help limit the
\ncases that could be brought to the Supreme Court to prevent more
\ncases from piling up.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Bagir said, the Supreme Court had tried to
\nsettle the problem by other means, including supporting out-of-
\ncourt settlements.<\/p>\n
The chief justice also complained about the lack of funds and
\nfacilities that had hampered the Court in its efforts to improve
\nits performance.<\/p>\n
The government has disbursed Rp 116 billion for the Supreme
\nCourt in this year's budget, which is double the budget allotted
\nin 2002.<\/p>\n
\"The amount is not sufficient, although it has helped the
\nSupreme Court to improve its performance,\" Bagir told
\nlegislators.<\/p>",
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