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)