Judicial bureaucracy tumbles into collusion pitfalls

Judicial bureaucracy tumbles into collusion pitfalls

JAKARTA (JP): The issue of bribery and corruption among
judicial authorities is not a new one in Indonesia. As recently
as April 1996, the Supreme Court was rocked by allegations of
collusion between several judges and a defendant. Still, the
case, which involved Rp 1.4 billion, shocked the public.

The Supreme Court's settlement of the case was no less
shocking when it stated that there was no collusion, though it
admitted that procedural mistakes had been made.

The then chief justice, Soerjono, reprimanded Deputy Chief
Justice for Criminal Affairs Adi Andojo Soetjipto, who first
revealed the improprieties. Soerjono and several other justices
later sent a petition to President Soeharto in an effort to
remove Andojo from the court.

The allegation came in reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling
in the case of the Gandhi Memorial School and defendant Ram
Gulumal. In 1993 Gulumal was sentenced to one year in jail by the
Central Jakarta District Court. The Jakarta High Court later
reduced the sentence to eight months.

Gulumal, who was defended by Djazuli Bahar, a former justice
and a former head of the Indonesian Judges Association, filed a
kasasi, or appeal, with the Supreme Court. In 1995 a panel of
Supreme Court justices led by Syamsuddin Abubakar exonerated
Gulumal.

Adi Andojo claimed that mistakes had been made in the ruling
and in the way the case was distributed among the justices. He
strongly believed that money had influenced the court's handling
of the case and its decision.

Director for Criminal Affairs Sujatmi Soedarmoko was later
demoted after she confessed that she had arranged to have the
case processed by certain justices.

A complicated set of procedures determines how cases are
handled at the Supreme Court and cases travel a long journey
before arriving in the hands of the justices.

The Supreme Court is led by a chief justice, who has a vice
chief justice and six deputies. The deputies handle criminal
affairs, civil affairs, cases related to customs law, cases
related to religious (Islamic) law, administrative cases and
military cases.

Procedure

There are a total of 51 justices, not including the chief
justice and the vice chief justice, who are broken down into 17
panels for case examination purposes. Today, 10 seats are vacant.

The Supreme Court handles appeals, requests for case reviews
and clemency. All cases sent to the Supreme Court are registered
by a court registrar, who later turns them over to the
administrative bureau of general affairs.

Once a week, the chief of the bureau distributes the cases to
the related directorate. There are four directorates in the
Supreme Court: Directorate of Civil Affairs, Directorate of
Criminal Affairs, Directorate of Religious Affairs, and
Directorate of Administrative Affairs.

The Supreme Court has eight teams led by the chief justice,
the vice chief justice and the six deputy chief justices.

Early every month, after reporting to the chief justice, the
directorates hand over a maximum of 120 cases to the head of each
team. Each team sets up between one and three panels of justices
to examine and rule on each case. Under certain circumstances,
the chief justice or the deputy chief justices with the chief's
approval, can set up a special panel to examine a case.

Assistants to the justices write briefs on each case. The case
file, along with the brief, is submitted to the panel of
justices. The panel of justices reads the case file and the
brief. Each justice has a maximum of one month to read them and
to write notes on each case.

The presiding justice then decides on a day for the panel to
deliberate the case and come up with a verdict.

After the verdict, a court clerk writes up a draft of the
verdict and gives a copy to each justice, who are to make
corrections if necessary. Any corrections are shown to the
presiding justice, who then determines a day to read the team's
final verdict.

The justices deliberate cases behind closed doors, but their
verdicts are read in public. The Supreme Court's verdicts are
then sent to the district courts, which have the task of
informing the disputing parties.

According to a 1992 study done at the University of Indonesia,
a case file goes through 26 steps before reaching a Supreme Court
justice.

The Supreme Court currently has a backlog of about 16,000
cases. Priority is given to the cases whose defendants are
incarcerated or to cases of significant public interest. In
priority cases, the Supreme Court can reach a decision in as
little as a few months. However, cases often take up to several
years to resolve, with some taking more than 10 years. (sim/08)