Deputy chief justice Taufiq denies abusing his power
JAKARTA (JP): Supreme Court Deputy Chief Justice Taufiq has denied charges by the Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) that he abused his power by ordering the seizure of money from a state company to compensate a private company for losses.
Taufiq has challenged the organization to report its suspicions to the police.
"There was no collusion or corruption. If people suspect that I abused my power, just report me to the police and let the court prove it," he said on Wednesday.
He claimed that he had followed all necessary procedures before issuing a letter dated Jan. 15, 2001 ordering the North Jakarta District Court to hand over Rp 2.1 billion -- confiscated from state electricity company PLN -- to PT Enico National Development.
ICW charged on Friday that Taufiq's issuance of the letter was illegal, especially since the case was still being processed by the Supreme Court.
In response to the charge, Taufiq said Supreme Court expert staffers had studied the case for three months before he issued the letter.
The North Jakarta District Court in 1999 confiscated Rp 2.1 billion from PLN's accounts after ruling that PT Enico incurred losses because the Ministry of Mines and Energy canceled a contract between the private company and PLN.
The ministry canceled the contract on a project at the hydrothermal electricity plant center in Suralaya, West Java, because of the company's apparent poor performance.
In 1993, PT Enico sued the ministry at the North Jakarta District Court, which then ordered the ministry to pay PT Enico compensation amounting to Rp 719.4 million.
The case was later taken to the Jakarta High Court, which ruled that the ministry had to make the payment, plus interest, to the company.
The Supreme Court upheld the district court's verdict.
However, PT Enico was not satisfied. It asked the Supreme Court to review the case and won. The justices ruled that the ministry was guilty and thus ordered it to pay the compensation plus a monthly 3 percent compound interest and a Rp 500,000 fine per day, starting on May 31, 1993.
Based on the ruling, the district court confiscated Rp 2.1 billion from PLN's accounts.
The money had yet to be given to PT Enico by the North Jakarta District Court because PLN filed an objection with the district court regarding the execution.
The district court, and later also the Jakarta High Court, then ruled that the state power company was not involved in the case.
PT Enico took the case in 1999 to the Supreme Court, which has not as yet handed down a verdict.
Taufiq, who took over the post in December last year, said the case was initially handled by former chief justice Sarwata, who had issued a decree ordering a stay in the execution against PLN since the latter was not involved in the case.
"But we believed that the execution should not be halted. In the letter to the Jakarta High Court, we just gave our point of view about the case, and that it was all up to the North Jakarta District Court whether to hand over the money confiscated from PLN to PT Enico," he said. (bby)