Punish judges who fail to declare their assets: NGO

Punish judges who fail to declare their assets: NGO

JAKARTA (JP): A non-governmental organization involved in the
effort to create a just, fair, and independent judicial process
has urged the Public Servants' Wealth Audit Commission (KPKPN) to
take resolute action against judges who fail to declare assets.

A. Muhammad Asrun, the coordinator of Judicial Watch, told a
press conference on Wednesday that the failure to return the
forms supplied by the KPKPN meant that the judges themselves, who
were supposed to make up the vanguard in the fight to promote the
supremacy of law, were in fact violating the law.

"Our data shows that out of 2,571 declarations distributed to
judges nationwide by the KPKPN in June, 2001, only about 100 have
been returned to the commission," Asrun said.

"The delay in returning the declarations clearly shows that
the judges have no desire to uphold the law and promote good
governance. They could also be charged with committing a crime as
they are trying to conceal their wealth from the public," he
said.

Asrun further urged the Supreme Court, along with the
government, to instruct the judges to hasten the return of the
declarations or face sanctions should they ignore the
instructions.

"The sanctions, for example, could be imposed in the form of a
reevaluation of the promotions of uncooperative judges. We are
setting a deadline of the end of this month for the Supreme Court
to issue the instruction, he said, adding that should the Supreme
Court ignore the warning, they would go to the People's
Consultative Assembly's working committee so that the latter
could examine the Supreme Court's performance.

Based on Judicial Watch data, the approximately 100 court
officials who had returned the declarations had assets ranging in
value from Rp 179,555 (US$19.95) to Rp 4 billion.

The richest court official was Sukhyar Nana Sujana, a clerk of
the Karawang District Court in West Java, who declared assets
worth Rp 4.964 billion, while the poorest was Stevanus Tasane, a
clerk of the Sumedang District Court, also in West Java.

The second richest was Mucshin, a Supreme Court justice, who
declared assets worth Rp 3.19 billion, while Supreme Court Chief
Justice Bagir Manan reported assets worth Rp 678.6 million.

Among the other richest persons associated with the court
system were Justices Marianna Sutadi Nasution and Kahardiman, and
former justice minister Muladi, all of whom declared assets
valued at between Rp 2.69 billion and Rp 2.88 billion.

The late Justice Syafiuddin Kartasasmita and Justice Benjamin
Mankoedilaga declared assets of Rp 1.110 billion and Rp 2.089
billion respectively.

The declarations, however, remained subject to verification as
the KPKPN had yet to conduct any investigations to find out
whether they were accurate, Asrun said.

Meanwhile, Judicial Watch's advocacy division head Margarito
Kamis said the reluctance on the part of the judges to report
their assets displayed their arrogance.

"The judges continue to maintain a dictatorial regime such as
existed under the New Order, in which good connections and
obscurity were everything," he said. (tso)