Supreme Court swamped with criminal cases

Supreme Court swamped with criminal cases

JAKARTA (JP): The Supreme Court is swamped with unprocessed
criminal cases because of the absence of personnel authorized to
distribute them to on-duty judges.

"Nobody is distributing criminal cases to the existing eight
groups of judges," Secretary-general of the Supreme Court Toton
Suprapto told reporters in his office yesterday.

The Supreme Court has been struggling to clear away a backlog
of at least 16,000 cases. Under normal conditions, it should be
processing around 200 criminal cases in less than a month.

There were previously five deputy justices authorized to
distribute criminal cases, civil cases, religious court cases,
state administrative court cases and military court cases to the
other judges. Included among the five was Deputy Chief Justice
for General Crimes Adi Andojo Soetjipto, who recently made waves
with his revelations that collusion and corruption abound in the
Supreme Court.

Adi has just had his authority to distribute cases revoked by
Chief Justice Soerjono.

Adi refused to comment on the revocation.

Issued on May 15, decree No. KMA/025/SK/V/1996 on procedures
for the distribution of criminal cases revokes Deputy Chief
Justice Adi Andojo Soetjipto's authority to distribute criminal
cases to the groups of judges.

Adi had reportedly exercised the authority since 1982, when he
was appointed deputy chief justice for general crimes. The
authority was handed down by Mudjono, then chief justice.

A source said that on May 2, Soerjono issued a decree with
which he took over the duty of all his deputies to distribute
cases. In the May 15 decree, he returned the authority to
distribute religious and state administrative court cases to two
deputies previously in charge of them.

Also with the decree, he reaffirmed his authority to
distribute civil cases and military court cases, in addition to
delegating authority to distribute criminal cases -- which
previously belonged to Adi -- to Vice Justice Mohammad Djaelani.

Toton said, however, that Djaelani has been absent,
hospitalized after suffering a stroke.

Before the revocation, Soerjono had also instructed Adi to
stop feeding information to the press over the alleged collusion
and bribery at the Supreme Court.

Soerjono said in a memo to Adi last month that the only person
authorized to speak with the press about the issue was Toton
Suprapto.

Adi grabbed nationwide attention in early April when a local
magazine revealed a confidential letter he wrote, in which he
asked the Central Jakarta Prosecutor's Office to review a
document fraud case handled last year by the Supreme Court.

A group of Supreme Court judges, presided over by Samsoedin
Aboebakar, had acquitted defendant Ram Gulumal of all charges of
falsifying land procurement documents.

Adi had reportedly submitted plenty of evidence to back up his
allegations of collusion, including a letter from the Supreme
Court's Director for General Crimes, Sujatmi Soedarmoko,
admitting she was involved in rearranging the group of judges to
try the case.

The case, in terms of priority, should have been given to the
Group H judges. However, it was tried by Group D, Adi had earlier
said. (imn)