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)