Supreme Court urged to act against corrupt judiciary<\/p>\n
Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post\/Jakarta<\/p>\n
A renowned legal practitioner has called on the Supreme Court to
\nawake from its long sleep and take measures against the corrupt
\njudiciary system as part of the ongoing nationwide anticorruption
\ndrive.<\/p>\n
Todung Mulya Lubis told The Jakarta Post here on Friday that
\nthe Supreme Court should not wait for complaints and reports from
\nthe public but rather had to be proactive and closely supervise
\nthe judicial process, especially when it involved high-profile
\ntrials.<\/p>\n
"The recent cases of Nurdin Halid, Adiguna Sutowo and Tengku
\nSyaifuddin Popon show strong indications that the court mafia
\ntruly exists, and the Supreme Court has to take measures to
\neliminate it," he said.<\/p>\n
He said the Supreme Court apparently did not care that
\ncitizens were disappointed with recent contentious decisions
\ncourts had made in high-profile cases.<\/p>\n
Nurdin Halid, an official of the Golkar Party and chairman of
\nthe Indonesian Distribution Cooperative (KDI), was acquitted of
\ncorruption charges this month.<\/p>\n
Adiguna, who faced a life sentence for shooting dead Yohannes
\nRudy Nathong, a university student and bartender at the Hilton
\nHotel, only received seven years jail.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Syaifuddin Popon was caught red-handed by
\ninvestigators trying to bribe a Jakarta High Court clerk
\napparently in a bid to influence the court's ruling against
\nAbdullah Puteh, the former governor of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam,
\nwho was sentenced to 10 years jail by the antigraft court for
\ncorruption. Ironically, the appeals court upheld the earlier
\nruling.<\/p>\n
Todung, also a human rights activist, said the controversial
\nverdicts were made under a corrupt judicial system and went
\ncontrary to the law and to citizen's sense of justice.<\/p>\n
He said the court mafia really existed, but it was very
\ndifficult to provide hard evidence of its existence.<\/p>\n
He said that whenever judges handed down controversial
\nverdicts it could reasonably be assumed that bribery was
\ninvolved.<\/p>\n
"The recent arrest of Popon, who was caught red-handed giving
\nRp 250 million to a clerk of the Jakarta High Court, is an
\nindication that giving bribes to lobby judges and other law
\nenforcers is a common practice in the judiciary system," Todung
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Separately, Kaman Sijabat, a lawyer at law firm Kaman Sijabat
\n& Partners, concurred, saying giving bribes to judicial officers
\nhas been a "public secret" for years in this country.<\/p>\n
He said he has handled hundreds of cases over the last several
\nyears and only a few have required payments and gratuities to law
\nenforcers and court staff.<\/p>\n
"Lawyers have been forced to give bribes to pursue their
\nclients' interests. They pay the police to let their clients go,
\nthey pay prosecutors to negotiate sentences, or they pay court
\nclerks and judges to overlook their clients' sins," he said,
\nadding that law enforcers often created conditions that meant
\nthat those implicated in high-profile cases and their lawyers had
\nno other choice than to give bribes.<\/p>\n
Todung and Kaman were of the same opinion, saying that the
\nSupreme Court was too slow in responding to public complaints and
\ncriticism of the systematic corrupt practices in the courts.<\/p>\n
"Besides conducting regular supervision, the Supreme Court
\nshould respond quickly to public complaints and criticism on any
\ncontroversial court verdicts by deploying a special inquiry team
\nto check the bank accounts of judges trying the cases," Todung
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Both also complained that the Supreme Court was not
\ntransparent when dealing with public reports of graft cases in
\nthe district courts and High Court.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/supreme-court-urged-to-act-against-corrupt-judiciary-1447893297",
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