Judges do not deserve privileges, experts say

Judges do not deserve privileges, experts say

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A number of judges' inherent rights for dealing with court cases
are prone to abuse and therefore should be scrapped, legal
experts have said.

Rudi Satrio and Topo Santoso, both from the University of
Indonesia, said on Tuesday judges should not be accorded any
rights that only hurt people's sense of justice.

"Given the country's corrupt judicial system, judges'
privileges are questionable and prone to misuse," Rudi told The
Jakarta Post.

An Indonesian judge enjoys a series of privileges including
rights to decide whether or not a convict has to serve his or her
sentence immediately, to reject witnesses and to allow a
defendant to inspect evidence.

Judges' inherent rights have come under fire following the
decision of the Jakarta High Court to uphold Golkar chairman
Akbar Tandjung's light jail sentence for corruption.

Akbar, who is also speaker of the House of Representatives
(DPR), was sentenced to three years in jail for his role in a Rp
40 billion financial scandal involving the State Logistics Agency
(Bulog). Corruption carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Akbar remains free pending appeal.

Despite sentencing him to jail, the Central Jakarta District
Court did not send Akbar to jail immediately, despite having the
authority to do so.

Besides Akbar, judges also allowed Bank Indonesia Governor
Syahril Sabirin and former minister of trade and industry Rahardi
Ramelan, both convicted for corruption, to walk free, pending
appeals.

Rudi said judges' rights to reject witnesses had always been
controversial as the reason for refusal could be very subjective.

He also said that it was strange that judges could allow
defendants to inspect evidence as the latter could easily destroy
it.

"It's better to scrap those inherent rights in order to avoid
hurting people's sense of justice," said Rudi, adding that other
countries did not accord judges such rights.

Meanwhile, Topo said that judges tended to hand down light
sentences as the country's Criminal Code (KUHP) only stipulated
maximum punishment, and not the minimum sentence.

Only Law No. 26/2000 on human rights tribunals stipulates a
10-year minimum sentence for crimes against humanity.

But even with the minimum sentence requirement, judges still
impose sentences below the stipulated minimum, claiming that the
minimum sentence was not in accordance with their sense of
justice.

"So it would be good if all judges' inherent rights were
withdrawn," he said.

Rudi and Topo went on to say that the KUHP and the Criminal
Law Procedures Code (KUHAP) had to be revised to accommodate the
need to eliminate judges' privileges.