Judges need scholarly assistance: Expert

JAKARTA (JP): State administrative court judges need independent experts to help their judges reach truly objective decisions, a prominent lawyer proposed yesterday.

T. Mulya Lubis said the presence of experts in the courts would help improve the judicial system in Indonesia, which has been viewed as "far from ideal".

"The experts' job will include providing ideas to aid judges so that the decisions they make are more objective," he said while addressing a two-day workshop on state administrative court held by the Ministry of Justice.

On hand were bureaucrats and law experts, including Girindro Pringgodigdo, the dean of administrative law school at the University of Indonesia and judge Benjamin Mangkoedilaga.

Mangkoedilaga was this year's winner of the Suardi Tasrif award, for his role in promoting the freedom of the press.

Lubis said he was inspired by administrative court judges' admission that they have limited knowledge on many fields and that they need experts to give them input to deal with particular cases.

He suggested that the experts, whom he called "lay judges", may be recruited from among professionals, especially those who work in independent research centers, such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center of Information and Development Studies.

He said that justice in Indonesia is still difficult to realize because the government is overly strong, social control is weak, the masses' educational level is low and press freedom is curtailed.

Scholarly assistance for judges is important because in the future, courts will have to try cases that involve sophisticated technology which was never imagined in the past. (16)