Plan to tighten appeal request wins support
Plan to tighten appeal request wins support
JAKARTA (JP): The Deputy Chief of the Jakarta Prosecutor's
Office, Tjokorda Made Ram, yesterday hailed Chief Justice
Soerjono's plan to tighten the criteria for appeals to the
Supreme Court against lower court verdicts.
"We, the prosecutors, welcome the chief justice's idea because
the plan will decrease the number of parties appealing against
lower court judgments when they know the chance of winning on
appeal is slim," Tjokorda said.
Tjokorda pointed out that the prosecutor's office is expected
to hold fast, inexpensive and fair trials which can be arduous
and for which it gains no advantage from.
He also urged lawyers and their clients not to prolong the
legal process in order to delay having to pay financial damages
or to postpone lower court rulings. It is common knowledge that
in civil cases, filing an appeal against a lower court ruling has
been widely used as a delaying tactic.
The chief justice has said that certain types of cases could
be barred from being heard in the Supreme Court. In civil cases
this would include the value of compensation and penalties handed
down by the lower court.
Due to the sensitive nature of the plan, Soerjono gave his
assurances that the authorities will move cautiously before
applying it, including discussing it with various parties and
experts.
Currently, almost any case can be brought to the Supreme
Court, even civil cases where the sum of damages is very small.
Soerjono said he inherited approximately 16,000 appeal cases
from his predecessor when he assumed the position of head of the
Supreme Court last November. In the absence of any restrictions,
the court receives around 2,000 new appeal cases each year.
Tjokorda said that the prosecutors are concentrating less on
the huge backlog of unsettled appeal cases because, especially
with criminal cases.
Tjokorda, however, admitted that the chief justice's proposal
will face a hard challenge because every disputing party has the
tendency to seek justice at the higher courts.
The proposal will be harder to apply as either the Criminal
Procedure Code or the Civil Procedure Code enables any party to
file an appeal to the higher courts if he or she considers a
court ruling is not just, he said.
Tjokorda is expected to leave his present post next week as he
will be assigned as the new Central Kalimantan prosecutor's
office chief.
A week after the plan was announced, noted legal experts such
as Nursyahbani Katjasungkana and Satjipto Rahardjo, agreed that
limitations will reduce the heavy burden of the supreme court.
However, Nursyahbani has said that such limitations should not
be applied to criminal cases because she believes that any person
convicted in a criminal case has the right to appeal even if the
lower court sentences him to just one day imprisonment. (mas)