Supreme Court has 16,000 pending appeals due to lack of justices

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Chief Justice Bagir Manan revealed on Thursday there are nearly 16,000 cases left unsolved in his office, particularly due to the absence of a law that would curb requests for a legal review.

The number was only a slight drop from last year's 16,233 unsolved cases.

Speaking at the Annual Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), Bagir said that although his staff had worked consistently the number could not be reduced significantly.

He added that his office could only solve about 600 cases per month while the number of unsolved cases followed a rising trend.

"This is because of the absence of a law to limit the request for a legal review," Bagir argued.

It is estimated that the Supreme Court receives 5,000 cases each year.

Citing an example, Bagir added that there were people who would bring a small case of a land dispute or a two-week prison sentence to the Supreme Court for legal review.

These small cases have to go through as complicated a procedure as other bigger cases and therefore take as much time. A law that poses strict requirements for a review of any case is therefore needed, he added.

According to Bagir, the Supreme Court's performance was also affected by the declining number of Supreme Court justices due to retirement or death. Currently, there are only 34 justices out of a required 51.

Almost every month there are justices who enter their mandatory age of retirement.

"If there are no additional justices, there will only be 30 justices left by the end of this year," he said.

The Supreme Court has submitted nominees to the House of Representatives (DPR) for approval. However, the process was interrupted by the Annual Session.

He also told the Assembly that his office had set up a working group assigned to recruit career and non-career justices for human rights trials.

The preparation for the human rights trial was urgent, he said, because it had become the main focal point of the international community.

At the opening of his report, Bagir claimed that despite Indonesia's tainted judicial system, most justices in the country remained committed to keeping their code of ethics.