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.