Supreme Court candidate declares Rp 3b in assets
Moch. N. Kurniawan, Jakarta
The House of Representatives began on Monday its screening of 43 Supreme Court justice candidates and found one of them possessed assets of nearly Rp 3 billion.
The candidate, Andar Purba, is the current head of the civil directorate at the Supreme Court. He was among the first six candidates questioned before an open forum on Monday.
Andar told lawmakers his wealth mainly came from his salary, land that he bought 37 years ago when he started his career as a judge, the regional administration budget during his tenure as president of district courts and holiday allowances.
"My land's value has sharply increased from Rp 6,000 per meter at that time to Rp 300,000 per meter now. I am not involved in any business activities," he told legislators.
In comparison, presidential candidate Amien Rais, who is also the People Consultative Assembly (MPR) speaker, has assets of around Rp 800 million.
When asked about his competence, Andar said a Supreme Court justice must be able to handle four cases a day, instead of the current standard of two, to prevent a backlog of cases.
Other candidates quizzed were chief of the Riau High Court Abbas Said, Supreme Court supervisory judge Agus Djunaedi Iskandar, Supreme Court monitoring and development assistant Ansyahrul and chief of the South Kalimantan High Court Azwar Dalim.
Abbas said that an institution to monitor judges' action should be revived.
He also agreed that dissenting opinion should be publicly announced to uphold the transparency of the court.
During his screening, Agus said the quantity of justices was less important than their performance in resolving cases.
For example, Turkey has 240 justices, but they are still unable to resolve all cases, he said.
Thus, Agus said, the resolution system must be improved and the bureaucrat line, shortened.
When asked about the reopening of the legal case of the raid on the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) headquarters on July 27, 1996, Agus said any cases should be brought to court in order to uphold justice.
"We will never decide cases on political reasons," he said.
The House Commission II for legal affairs announced last week 44 career judges were eligible to be screened. The candidates will vie for 12 Supreme Court justice seats and two Constitutional Court justice seats.
One of the candidates, chief of the Papua High Court in Jayapura, I Gusti Ngurah Suparka, was scrapped from the list as he did not complete the required documents.
The remaining candidates will be questioned from Tuesday to Thursday.
The House Commission II will announce the eligible candidates on Friday.
The House will then endorse on Monday the elected justices in a plenary session. The President will later swear in the new justices.