Government to install 60 judges for rights court

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government will soon install 60 career and non-career judges to permanent and ad hoc courts scheduled to try human rights cases.

Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra said on Monday that the new judges would commence work after attending a six-day course on rights issues.

After opening the course, Yusril said that he hoped to install the judges by Dec. 1 at the latest.

The judges, half of whom are non-career appointments, will be posted at permanent rights courts in Jakarta, Surabaya, the North Sumatran capital of Medan and the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar.

The government also established ad hoc rights tribunals to try past cases, including the 1984 massacre in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, and the 1999 turmoil in East Timor.

The non-career judges are comprised of experts from human rights study centers at major state universities.

Indonesia is yet to formulate trial procedure codes for the rights tribunal and courts, while none of the career judges have had experience trying rights cases as Law No. 39/1999 on the Human Rights Tribunal was only enacted in November last year.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Bagir Manan once said that Indonesia lacked judges. He said that the country had only 2,300 judges while, ideally, there should be 5,000.

Yusril said a selection team from his ministry and the Supreme Court, led by Supreme Court Justice Benyamin Mangkoedilaga, would evaluate the judges' sensitivity on the issues.

"The best candidates will be entrusted with high priority cases," he said, adding that the judges should focus only on rights cases.

Benyamin said that only several of the recruited career judges were assigned to specialize on rights issues, while others still had to handle criminal or civil cases at the general courts due to the backlog of cases.

Yusril said that the government is also ready to submit a draft on the establishment of a commission on reconciliation and rehabilitation to the lawmakers.

The commission, he said, would resolve past cases of human rights violations where witnesses and evidence may no longer be available, but the impact of which was significant to the nation.

Separately, the Supreme Court, the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL), the Australian Center for Environmental Law (ACEL), the state's Environmental Impact Control Agency (Bapedal) and SAGRIC International held the last round of training for judges on environmental issues here.

The training, conducted since Dec. 1999 in 20 cities throughout the country, has reached at least 600 judges, 60 state prosecutors, 60 policemen, 96 Bapedal staffers and environmental activists.

"Hopefully this training can boost efforts to strengthen and uphold environmental laws in Indonesia," ICEL's executive director Wiwiek Awiati said.