Roy Suryo's Pretrial Motion Deemed an Abuse of Process to Delay Main Hearing

A judge at the South Jakarta District Court has ruled that a pretrial motion filed by Roy Suryo, a suspect in an alleged defamation case concerning the authenticity of former President Joko Widodo’s academic certificates, cannot be used as a tool to delay the main trial. Judge I Ketut Darpawan stated during the verdict hearing on Monday that the action of filing a pretrial motion regarding the suspect designation after the case had been transferred, and after the first pretrial had reached the conclusion stage, was a clear attempt to delay and disrupt the examination of the main case. The judge considered this effort a form of abuse of the pretrial process. The judge further reasoned that Article 163 paragraph 1 letter a stipulates that a pretrial examination can only postpone the commencement of the main case examination if the case is transferred while the pretrial process is ongoing. However, if the main case has already been transferred to the court and a pretrial motion is subsequently filed, this must be considered an abuse of legal procedure. Based on these considerations, the judge declared the petition irrelevant and rejected it in its entirety. The case is registered under number 108/Pid.Pra/2026/PN JKT.SEL.