Collusion story at Supreme Court continues

By T. Sima Gunawan

JAKARTA (JP): Chief Justice Soerjono attempted earlier this month to put an end to the uproar over alleged collusion and bribery at the Supreme Court by announcing that the investigation team found no evidence to support the charges.

The story, however, is far from being over.

Deputy Chief Justice Adi Andojo Soetjipto, who first revealed the alleged collusion, persisted in his efforts to prove the allegation as true. He refused to accept the report at face value. He demanded that he be given the opportunity to read the report, saying he had all the evidence that collusion did take place in the Supreme Court, which many people here refer to as "the last fortress of justice". He went as far as asking Vice President Try Sutrisno to follow up the results of the investigation team.

His stance has apparently irritated some people. Soerjono had reportedly given him a warning for going public with his allegation that a number of Supreme Court senior judges had colluded in order to try and later acquit the defendant of a fraud document case.

Last week, Adi was forbidden to talk at a seminar organized by the Indonesian Islamic University in Yogyakarta. He was also told to cancel his plan to meet judges there. There were even reports that Soerjono plans to request President Soeharto's permission to dismiss Adi. As of yesterday, the reports could not be confirmed.

To add insult to injury, Adi's own colleagues lambasted him for his stance. The Indonesian Judges Association said Adi should have respected and accepted the result of the investigation.

But support from many legal experts and human right activists is growing. They have praised his courage in revealing the dark side of the Supreme Court and for the tenacity in trying to prove his allegation.

"We should be proud that we have a brave justice like him," Djohan Djauhari, Secretary-General of the Indonesian Bar Association, told The Jakarta Post earlier this week.

He agreed with Adi that the results of the investigation team should be followed up in a transparent manner. "Everybody is concerned about the Supreme Court, and people want a thorough investigation of the case," Djohan said.

Although Soerjono has stated there was no collusion in the Supreme Court, he admitted there was a "violation of the procedures" in the way the fraud case was parceled out to the wrong panel of judges. This was contained in the 1,561-page classified report.

Soerjono, however, failed to elaborate on how the violation of the procedures took place, and what actions would or had been taken against the violators.

Adi had charged that there was a Rp 1.4 billion (US$600,000) bribe involved in the document fraud case against Ram Gulumal, an Indian citizen who is the founder and principal of the Gandhi Memorial International School in North Jakarta.

Money could have changed hands in the process that led the Court to acquit Ram, Adi said. He pointed out that the Supreme Court's Director for General Crimes, Sujatmi Soedarmoko, had confessed she rearranged the group of judges to try the case. Sujatmi has been demoted following the confession.

Ram was defended by Djazuli Bahar, a former Supreme Court justice and also a former chairman of the Indonesian Judges Association.

Collusion and bribery are by no means new in the country's judiciary.

Embarassing

One of the most embarrassing cases took place in 1987. An angry woman hurled one of her shoes toward a Central Jakarta District Court judge after he rendered a verdict which she considered too light for the defendant.

The woman claimed she had handed over a sum of money to the judge in exchange for a harsh punishment for the defendant. The judge was later transferred to a small town in Central Java.

It's a known fact that there were judges who have been demoted for abusing their power, but none of them have ever faced criminal charges.

Last year, former justice Z. Asikin said that 50 percent of Indonesia's judges were corrupt. Another former justice, Bismar Siregar, also admitted that many judges as well as justices were not "clean".

One of the obstacles toward proving such allegations, despite the abundant reports on bribery and other violations, is the fact that the perpetrators are legal experts who know how to cover their misdeeds. There is also the tendency of the courts to conceal judges' wrongdoings in order to maintain "the good image" of the judiciary.

The legislation authorizes the Supreme Court to supervise and take action against delinquent judges. But who has the right to oversee the Supreme Court justices?

Some experts say that judges are accountable to the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR); these people have urged the MPR to form a team to probe the collusion case. Other people disagreed, saying there is no legislation stipulating such an action.

The Supreme Court is regulated under MPR Decree No. III/MPR/1978, Law No. 14, 1970 on Basic Judicial Power and Law No. 14, 1985 on the Supreme Court. The legislations clearly stipulate that the Supreme Court should be free from the government's influence as well as "other influences". But they mention nothing about the Supreme Court's accountability.

"MPR should discuss this matter in their next session and issue a regulation about the Supreme Court's accountability," Djohan said.

MPR is the supreme sovereign body that meets every five years to produce the Broad Guidelines of State Policies and to elect a president. It comprises the 500 members of the House of Representatives and 500 other appointees.

Justice Adi himself had once expressed concern over the lack of legislation on the Supreme Court's accountability.

"The Supreme Court is not accountable to anyone in this world. The justices are accountable to their own conscience," he told an international law seminar in Tokyo in October last year.

"If they deliberately do something wrong, they will be like a motorist in a `hit and run' case, who can not be at peace because of the misdeed they committed," he said.

He admitted that "the proper exercise of authority and procedural justice" -- a `legalese' for `independent judiciary' -- in Indonesia has far to go before meeting the public's expectations. However, he said he was optimistic that things would change soon.

"Now that there is more openness in Indonesia's political life, which allows people to criticize openly, I hope things will begin to change soon," he said.