Court to receive files on corrupt judges this month

Court to receive files on corrupt judges this month

JAKARTA (JP): The government-appointed Joint Team to Eradicate
Corruption is once again to bring charges against corrupt judges,
this time through the offices of public prosecutors.

Head of the team Adi Andojo Sutjipto said that the team would
start submitting the dossiers on bribery cases involving
delinquent judges to the district courts concerned later this
month.

"Our team consists of, among others, prosecutors and police
officers. The prosecutors will submit the dossiers in the name of
the prosecutor's office concerned," he told The Jakarta Post on
Tuesday by telephone.

Late last year, the South Jakarta District Court ruled that
the team had no authority to prosecute such cases on the grounds
that, according to the court, only the police and prosecutors had
the right to do so. The ruling was issued after a lawsuit had
been filed by Supreme Court justices Supraptini Sutarto and
Marnis Kahar, who were named suspects by the anticorruption team
in a Rp 196 million (US$22,500) bribery case.

Andojo, a former judge, said that the investigations conducted
by his team had also revealed a number of corruption cases
involving judges of the lower courts, based not only in Jakarta,
but also in some other big cities including Surabaya.

"Some cases involved billions of rupiah," he said.

The antigraft team was set up by Attorney General Marzuki
Darusman and launched by President Abdurrahman Wahid in April,
2000. The team has prioritized the eradication of corruption in
the judicial system.

Andojo said that the efforts to combat corruption had been
hampered by the delinquent judges, whose verdicts often sparked
controversy.

He expressed his enthusiasm over the move by the new Minister
of Justice and Human Rights Baharuddin Lopa, who issued a
statement on Feb. 12, underlining that all judges and employees
of his ministry must not take bribes.

He said that the team would cooperate with Lopa, who was his
"old friend", to seek clean judges to handle corruption cases.

Meanwhile, South Jakarta District Court spokesman Soedarto
said that the judges welcomed the warning but he was skeptical
about its impact.

"We understand that judges may not deal with lawyers outside
the court, but who can control that?" he asked.

He said that the judges in handing down their verdicts were
accountable to God, not to the ministry or the Supreme Court.

"So, everything depends of each judge's personality and moral
integrity," he said, adding that the minister's call should also
be addressed to lawyers.

He said that a verdict depended on a judge's intuition, and
that there was no fixed standard for imposing punishments on
defendants.

The South Jakarta District Court chief, Lalu Mariyun, however,
declined to comment on Lopa's statement.

"I wouldn't dare comment on the minister's move," he said.

Mariyun was the presiding judge who refused to try former
president Soeharto on corruption charges, saying that he was too
sick to stand trial.

Even though Feb. 12's statement does not carry any legal
sanctions against those who fail to comply with it, some praised
Lopa's action as a start in the process of eradicating corrupt
practices.

Coordinator of the Indonesia Legal Aid Institute and Human
Right Association (PBHI) Hendardi said that he believed the
statement would likely scare the judges or other people in the
ministry who abused their powers.

He underlined, however, that Lopa has to impose strict
sanctions on the judges who are found to be guilty of abusing
their authority, otherwise his warning statement would not be
effective.

The new minister should investigate every controversial ruling
made by the courts, such as those exonerating defendants Djoko
Sugiarto Tjandra and Pande N. Lubis in the Bank Bali scandal and
the light sentence imposed on Mohamad Bob Hasan by the Central
Jakarta District Court, Hendardi said. (01/sim)